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A Circle in the Sand 



A Circle in the Sand 



[Mrs. F. M. Vermilye] 

Author of The Kiss of Gold, The Other House, etc. 


Poised for an instant in the master’s hand, 

Body and soul like to a compass stand — 

The body turning round the central soul, 

He makes a little circle in the sand. 

Le Gallienne*s rendering of the Rubidydt, 



VT CRESCIT 

^ ■ 






Lamson, WolfFe and Company 

Boston, New York and London 


MDCCCXCVIII 




o 


23129 



Copyright, 1898, 

By Lamson, Wolffe and Company 


All rights reserved 

tl^COPIES RECElVliU» 



6. J. PARKHILL & CO., BOSTON, U.S.A. 
PRINTERS 




To 


F. M. V. 


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A Circle in the Sand 


Chapter I 



'HE office boy stood beside David 


X Temple’s desk, a slip of paper 
on which a name was written in his 
hand. He knew better than to inter- 
rupt the editor when his pen was racing 
in that aggressive way, so he stood 
rumpling the bit of pink paper with 
grimy fingers while speculatively re- 
garding a fly running unmeaning races 
from a cloudy map of the United States 
to the big ink bottle occupying the 
centre of a very untidy desk. 

The day was breathless and humid. 
From the earliest hours the sun’s rays 
had swept the streets like destroying 
glances from a malevolent eye. The 


2 


A Circle in the Sand 


dusty, ink-spattered offices of the New 
York “ Citizen ” were stifling. Beyond 
the open windows could be seen sun- 
baked roofs, spires, and chimneys 
swathed in a hot mist. Every man in 
the editorial rooms was in his shirt- 
sleeves. Some had discarded moist 
collars. All were working hard. 

David Temple laid down his pen and 
glanced over the hastily written page, 
his expression determined. 

“ That’ll make them hum,” he said, 
and without looking up he touched the 
bell, at the same instant becoming 
aware of the boy beside him. 

‘‘ Here you are. Take this down, 
Pete, just as fast as you can. Eh? 
Some one to see me? All right. Tell 
him to wait. Come back at once.” 

He picked up the paper, the kind in 
use in the office, bearing the directions : 

“Name . State business.” “ Anne 

Garrick” was written in lead pencil 
upon it. The latter request was un- 
heeded. 

David laid it down, lit a cigar, and 


A Circle in the Sand 


3 


went over to the window. It was a 
still, maddening day; the horses toiled 
between their shafts; the springs of life 
moved wearily even on Park row. He 
looked at his watch. It was half-past 
four. At six he was due at The Play- 
ers to dine with an actor, who, by 
means of a haunting voice and a pair 
of fine eyes, enjoyed an income that 
equalled the Vice-President’s. He had 
promised to go to a dance on board a 
yacht anchored in the Sound. He be- 
gan to wish he could escape the latter 
and instead find his way to the ham- 
mock on his roof-top, where he could 
smoke under the stars. At thirty-six, 
with hair whitening, he was getting 
past dances. 

“ The young lady ” — commenced 
Pete timidly at his elbow. 

“Oh, there is a lady! I’d forgotten. 
Show her in,” and he slipped on the 
alpaca coat lying across the chair. 

The swinging door was pushed back, 
and Anne Garrick came toward him. 
She seemed, in the first inattentive 


4 


A Circle in the Sand 


glance, tall, slenderly made, her face 
showing marks of care or illness, yet 
pretty enough to be interesting. Her 
eyes were long, very bright, yet soft, 
and they were a deep brown like her 
hair. Her gown was of mourning cloth 
and she wore a black sailor hat. 

David drew a chair forward for her 
and, seating himself opposite, let his 
great shoulders rest easily, while he re- 
garded her, as was his fashion, through 
half-veiled eyes. 

“ Miss Garrick?” he said, glancing at 
the slip. “ What can I do for you ? 
You’ll pardon me if I tell you at once 
that I have a dinner engagement at six 
and have only a few moments to spare.” 

This was said with one of David’s 
confidential smiles. 

“ I sha’n’t keep you long,” she said, 
leaning forward, “ Dr. Ericsson, my 
uncle, sent me to you.” 

‘‘ Oh, yes. How is he? I’ve not seen 
him for a month.” 

“ He’s very well, thank you.” 

“ So you come on business from him ? ” 


A Circle in the Sand 


5 


and David breathed freely. Do you 
knoWj Miss Garrick, I was afraid you 
were here as an applicant for work on 
the paper?” 

So I am,” she said, her eyes amused. 
Is it quite useless? ” 

^^You mean you really want news- 
paper work ? ” and his tone was almost 
reproachful. 

I reall}^ do. I want it more than 
anything else in the world. Indeed, I 
want nothing else,” she said earnestly. 

You have some illusions about it, 
perhaps ? ” 

I don’t think so, and I must work.” 
The words were spoken lightly, but 
with an urgent note. David was in- 
terested. His fingers fell from the fob 
he had been twisting in regard for the 
passing moments. He noticed the line 
of impatience between her straight 
brows, the intensity in the bend of her 
mouth, the paleness of her worn yet 
youthful face, her intent attitude. 

He had met many women demand- 
ing just such martial struggles in the 


6 


A Circle in the Sand 


battle of existence. Here was an- 
other. What should he say to her — 
the old objections, the old warnings? 
He was disinclined for the task more 
for some reason now than ever be- 
fore. But the “Citizen” did not want 
women among its workers. That was 
one of his father’s prejudices which 
he had never set aside. 

He returned to the argument, but 
his tone was still persuasive. This 
surprised himself, yet he felt it was 
because Miss Garrick came from Dr. 
Ericsson, and his liking for the old 
Swedish physician was a very deep 
one. He would not admit to himself 
that there was another reason — the 
youth, the charm, of this woman mak- 
ing the plea he had rejected so often. 

“ The work is terribly hard. Miss 
Garrick, and really,” he said, as if mak- 
ing an admission almost against his 
will, “ I don’t regard the newspaper as 
a field for women.” 

“ Don’t you ? Why not ? ” 

“ Oh, it’s a blistering atmosphere. 


A Circle in the Sand 


7 


and women were never meant to find 
nourishment in hard facts. I advise 
you to do something else — write a 
book, or teach, or anything.’’ 

Oh, Mr. Temple,” she said with sud- 
den earnestness, I don’t feel that way 
about it! I want to be a journalist.” 

David felt a desire to know her a 
little better — to hear her views and 
then dismiss them successfully. He 
had still fifteen minutes to spare. He 
began to think she was very pretty. 

Have you ever been on a paper 
“ No, although I’ve written a great 
deal,” she said, while watching him 
intently. I thought I might get some- 
thing to do regularly — some position. 
I know I’d sueceed. I wish you’d try 
me.” 

No — I can’t,” he said, almost 
brusquely, and I hope you’ll change 
your mind and try something else. 
Besides, I haven’t anything I eould 
offer you, nothing a woman could do 
— much too difficult. You take my 
advice and try something else.” 


8 


A Circle in the Sand 


“I think I know what you mean” 
— and she stood up. “You think this 
work hardly feminine ” — 

He nodded. She looked disap- 
pointed, but unconvinced. 

“ And you’re afraid of encouraging 
incompetence.” 

“ Oh, no, really, I ” — 

“Yes, I think you are. Well, I’ll 
tell you just the way I feel about it. I 
must be a journalist ” — 

“ Why must you ? ” 

“ Because I know I’m fitted for it, 
and the life attracts me. I might have 
preferred to be a painter or a musician, 
but we are not allowed to select our 
talents.” She smiled and moved a step 
away. “ If you can’t employ me there’s 
nothing more to be said about it, and 
I’m sorry for having detained you. 
But — somebody else will employ me. 
I’ve only been in New York a month, 
and you’re the first editor I’ve seen. 
This will explain why Dr. Ericsson 
suggested my coming to you. I 
showed it to him.” 


A Circle in the Sand 


9 


She drew a letter from her pocket 
and handed it to David. He was sur- 
prised to see the heading of the Citi- 
zen ’’ on the sheet, his own handwriting 
beneath it. It was written to a man 
named Robert Heron, and directed to 
a small Rhode Island town. 

You know Heron? ” he asked 
quickly. 

^^Yes. You like his work, it 
seems.” 

Very much,” he said, in a mystified 
voice. I don’t as a rule seek ^ specials’ 
outside, but his were so trenchant, so 
brilliantly phrased, so exactly what we 
wanted, I couldn’t help, you see, writ- 
ing to ask the cause of his long silence. 
Most of his work, of whatever sort, has 
commanded attention here. Now, there’s 
a man,” said David enthusiastically and 
in the final tone which closes an argu- 
ment, “ I sometimes wish had the am- 
bition and spirit of the woman of to-day. 
He’s wasting his time in a small place 
doing desultory work ; a dreamer, I dare 
say an idler too. We need men like 


lO 


A Circle in the Sand 


him here. I wish you’d tell him so,” 
he smiled. 

Anne’s eyes were perversely girlish 
as she said simply: 

“ I’m Robert Heron, Mr. Temple.” 


Chapter II 


T he advent of a woman in the edi- 
torial rooms of the “ Citizen ” 
was no longer the latest topic there. 
Anne had been one of the staff for a 
fortnight. 

She had come with a reputation al- 
ready made, which she must continue 
to sustain. Every nerve had been 
strained to do this, and she had suc- 
ceeded. All other impressions had been 
lost sight of in this one purpose. The 
rush and pressure of life around her, the 
strange scenes and faces, the new rou- 
tine, seemed the fabric of a dream- 
world where she was the intensely vital 
figure. 

Although her working hours were 
short, the continued effort and oppres- 
sive heat had given her face a wan touch. 
But she felt no fatigue. On the con- 


II 


12 


A Circle in the Sand 


trary she was aware of the satisfaction 
arising from fulfilment. This niche in 
the dusty, metallic world where a great 
newspaper was made was the only thing 
she had craved. To prove herself worthy 
of its possession was the single aim of 
her life. David Temple had hesitated 
to engage her because she was a woman. 
He had told her she would soon weary. 
She must prove his prophecy false. 
This was the impetus that made her 
bold. The result was gratifying. 

Matters of social and moral impor- 
tance started out vividly during the ter- 
rible summer weather. The handling of 
some of these was assigned to Anne. It 
would seem that David Temple had 
decided to take her cruelly at her word 
and treat her as a man, or as if he had 
wished to force an evidence of affright 
or weakness from her. He was mis- 
taken. Anne was a soldier’s daughter. 
Best of all, she was confident of her 
right to be there. Robert Heron had 
never done better work than came from 
her pen during that fortnight. 


A Circle in the Sand 


13 


When she had defended her position 
and won, there came a lull, and with- 
out seeming to watch she absorbed a 
knowledge of the people around her and 
noticed what events and colorings go to 
make up existence in a newspaper office. 

There was the sentimental reporter, 
who furtively read and re-read feminine- 
looking letters and sighed over stock 
reports; the silent man with the scarred 
face, who smoked strong cigars; the 
society editor, whose smile was as well 
oiled as his russet boots; the baby-faced 
reporter, who betted on everything and 
matched ” on the smallest provoca- 
tion; the fretful critic with the perpet- 
ual cold in the head, who banged the 
door as if to insinuate his exit was final, 
and who always returned in a rush for 
something forgotten; the artist loung- 
ing with an exalted look to his feet, who 
drew inspiration from Egyptian cigar- 
ettes; Pete, the office boy, with terrible 
worldly knowledge in his pale eyes and 
the savoir faire of a veteran clubman in 
his manner, who grew confidential with 


A Circle in the Sand 


14 

her and tried to interest her in the intri- 
cacies of baseball; and David Temple, 
the editor-in-chief, who, unlike many 
of his compeers, worked hard, bringing 
with him an assurance of well-bred ease 
and a capability for exertion and endur- 
ance. 

Her surroundings were so strange 
that Anne often wondered if it were 
indeed she who was there, the lonely 
girl who in the well-stocked library of 
a silent country house had written most 
of the historical and descriptive “ spe- 
cials” which had commanded attention. 

While the clatter of the presses and 
the unaccustomed tread of life were in 
her ears she would close her eyes and 
summon a vision of a different scene 
and time: A hollow at the foot of a hill 
where a great pool lay, and willow 
branches like green lengths of dishev- 
elled hair trailed in the water; a girl — 
herself, the Anne Garrick who was dead 
never to rise again — lying at full length 
under the trees, her cheek upon an open 
book, the fragrance of a lost land around 


A Circle in the Sand 


15 


her, the whir of unseen wings, the fire- 
flies in the blackness under the cedars 
or flashing like uneasy eyes from the 
confusion of lush grass, the sound of 
water pushing its way through twisted 
weeds with a coquettish whimper like 
silk rubbed on silk. 

Some snatch of a street song, the 
exciting news of the last murder, or 
the clangor of Trinity’s bell would 
frighten these imaginings, and despite 
her pagan love of nature she would 
return to work, happy that the last 
two years of solitude and reverie were 
over. 

David talked to her very little and 
never about anything save work. She 
watched him and found him curiously 
interesting. Other men were more or 
less of a familiar type, but David Tem- 
ple was individual. A nascent force 
marked his lightest action. To be near 
him was like coming within the radius 
of a powerful electric current. 

She had always liked clean-shaved 
men. They seemed a degree farther 


i6 


A Circle in the Sand 


from the idea of the ancestral monkey 
than their bewhiskered brothers. David 
was clean-shaved, spare of flesh, strongly 
built. There was unity in his simple 
name, stern face, searching gray eyes, 
and the practical surroundings in which 
he worked. Back of his desk the bound 
volumes of the “ Citizen ” for a genera- 
tion were sombrely heaped. Electric 
wires and buildings of granite were 
visible beyond the window near which 
he sat. The man and his mission were 
melodic. 

Anne was slowly drawing on her 
gloves one evening when the reporter 
with the scarred face laid down his 
cigar and asked a question of nobody 
in particular. 

“ Any of you fellows know where 
Donald Sefain has hidden himself this 
time ? ” 

The name attracted her, and she 
found herself waiting for the reply. 

“ Oh, Lord, it’s too warm to think of 
Sefain’s vagaries! He’s probably trying 
tenement-house life again with some of 


A Circle in the Sand 


17 


his slum friends while a penny remains. 
When he’s broke he’ll come back and 
work for another spurt,” the society 
editor replied with fine unconcern. 

“Fool! Flinging himself away! He 
won’t last long.” 

“ D’ you know what I’d do if I were 
in Temple’s place and had such a pre- 
cious bundle of shiftlessness and surli- 
ness for a so-called brother” — 

“ H’m! There isn’t much doubt 
about what you’d do.” 

“Kick him out.” And the society 
editor fingered his imperial tenderly. 

“ I think he hates Temple more 
every day,” said Jack Braidley, the 
reporter who “ matched.” “ He’s an 
idea he’s one too many in the world, 
I fancy.” 

The words were hardly spoken when 
the door opened and a man came in. 
From the hush greeting his entrance 
Anne knew it was Donald Sefain. 
She looked at him attentively. 

There were unmistakable marks of 
vagabondism about him — his dusty 


i8 


A Circle in the Sand 


clothes, churlish manner, long, untidy 
hair. He was of moderate height and 
slender build, he carried his shoulders 
poorly, and his eyes were sunken. But 
for all this his dark, foreign face, sneer- 
ing, secretive, defiant, was startlingly 
handsome as he stood in the red wash 
tones of the sunset pouring through 
the dusty windows. 

He looked at Anne with some sur- 
prise in his glance, his expression 
questioning; then he became indiffer- 
ent, nodded curtly to the men, and sat 
down at a corner desk. From his atti- 
tude one would have supposed he was 
sketching or writing. As she passed 
him to the door she saw his fingers 
were motionless, his open eyes intro- 
spective. 

While the room contained a dozen 
men, it was evident Donald Sefain 
would be left alone with his musings. 
He had withdrawn from the others as 
if from habit. Even before she had 
passed into the hall they seemed to 
have forgotten his existence. 


Chapter III 


T hree miles lay between the of- 
fices of the “ Citizen” and the 
trio of rooms Anne had rented and fur- 
nished during the six weeks of her res- 
idence in New York. They were in a 
low red-brick house separated from 
the street by a patch of grass and 
iron palings. The neighborhood had 
Washington square for its nucleus, 
the only part of the money-making 
town preserving the mossy tone of 
Knickerbocker days, where occasional 
low doorsteps and spindle-legged ban- 
isters keep the costumes and manners 
of the century’s infancy clear in the 
memory. 

Anne loved the queer street, the ven- 
erable church opposite, with its unfash- 
ionable parishioners and sweet-tongued 
bell, the amethyst light stealing across 
19 


20 


A Circle in the Sand 


the landscape of roofs, the fret of trains 
flashing past in aerial passage not far 
off and leaving a plume of vapor be- 
hind, the passing of many people along 
the pavements reaching into smoky per- 
spective. 

These impressions were a ripening 
contact, helping to wake her to newer 
perceptions of life, making her realize 
that she stood unsupported in a crowded, 
struggling place. 

She had the exhilarating sensations, 
of a daring and capable swimmer who 
plunges into deep water where only his 
own skill can keep him afloat. 

Her eyes were shining, her color 
high, as she hurried up the narrow 
stairway and entered the sitting-room. 
An old man was standing by one of 
the windows and turned expectantly 
as she came in. It was Dr. Ericsson. 
He looked at her with cool, friendly 
scrutiny. 

“ I’ve been waiting for you again. 
There’s something witching about you, 
Anne,” he said helplessly. “ You’ve 


A Circle in the Sand 


21 


quite spoiled me for solitude. Every 
dinner I have away from you is like 
sawdust.’’ 

Anne laid her arm lightly around his 
shoulder. She was a little the taller. 
There was something charmingly auda- 
cious in her young face and protecting 
attitude contrasted with his gray hair 
and sixty odd years. She had the im- 
petuosity and assurance of a fresh run- 
ner who fears nothing on the long, 
mysterious race just begun. He had 
the half-defeated expression of one ap- 
proaching with lagging steps the end, 
and who thinks little even of the win- 
ning of that race which nevertheless 
must be run in one fashion or another. 

I never knew a man so eager for 
compliments,” she said, her lips curl- 
ing in playful scorn. “ Shall I fib, and 
say every meal is lonely without you? 
Not a bit of it! I come home so hungry, 
uncle dear, and the man at the corner 
sends in such good chops! I put on a 
blouse and dream over my coffee, while 
Nora in the kitchen sings Irish melo- 


22 


A Circle in the Sand 


dies in an adorable voice and with a 
creamlike brogue.” 

She laid her finger under his chin 
and looked into his eyes. 

“ But when you do come, you dear, 
cynical creature, I shelve dreams gladly 
and don’t care a pin for Nora’s songs. 
Satisfied ? ” 

She hurried away to change her 
gown, and Dr. Ericsson was left alone 
in the dusk. He listened in a dreamy' 
way to the maid crossing and recrossing 
the rug-covered floor. His arms hung 
by his sides, his eyes were fastened 
on a trail of smoke diminishing in the 
sunset. 

Thirty years before, then a young 
Swede newly arrived in America for a 
bout with fortune, he had married the 
sister of Anne’s mother. They had set- 
tled in New York, and by degrees he 
became successful and rich. His wife 
was a beauty, his children’s future 
bright, and life went well. But trouble 
came. His children, with the excep- 
tion of Olga, the youngest, died during 


A Circle in the Sand 


23 


school days ; his fortune, entrusted to false 
friends, went to help their speculations 
and was lost. Now, in old age, he was 
a physician of reputation, but poor, 
possessing a fashionably inclined wife, 
whose weekly letters from Paris, where 
she had elected to live when Olga’s 
school days in Switzerland were over, 
were wearying longings for the vanished 
wealth. His daughter was almost a 
stranger to him. She had gone away 
a child: she was now a woman of 
twenty; what sort of a woman, evolved 
by her mother’s worldliness and a false 
system of education, he hesitated to 
consider. His life was spent in the 
depleted family mansion on Waverly 
place, with one old servant, amid furni- 
ture masked in gray holland and por- 
traits of his lost children blinking 
through gauze sheetings. Only his 
patients and friends had prevented him 
from becoming like the piano in the 
corner, which had almost forgotten how 
to vibrate. 

But he knew what a home might be 


24 


A Circle in the Sand 


since Anne came to New York. He 
was very fond of her, wholly in sym- 
pathy with her. His gaze wandered 
to a shadowy pastel on the wall before 
him, where her deep eyes were touched 
by the sunset’s fire. It seemed to tell 
him much. Hers had been a stern, 
starved girlhood up to the present year. 
After college days and between the 
ages of twenty and twenty-three she 
had been chained to the bedside of an 
invalid father, her life a strain when it 
was not stagnation, unused energy fret- 
ting her heart, what should have been 
the sunniest period of her life drifting 
by in shadow. 

When her father died, she had found 
herself wholly orphaned and free to 
plan her future according to her tastes. 
She had a small income, a thorough 
education, and the talent of being able 
to write with splendor and force of 
whatever she felt deeply. The con- 
trolled yearnings for freedom had grown 
into one desire, and she had gratified it. 
The old home was rented, and like a 


A Circle in the Sand 


25 


young David entering the camp of the 
Philistines she had come to New York. 
Three things she had determined on — 
to live alone, work, fill her days with 
impressions of life, fling away books 
and study men and women. 

When the maid appeared with can- 
dles Anne followed her, a bowl of 
roses in her hands. The newspaper 
woman in severe, collared gown was 
gone, and in her place was an ex- 
quisite creature akin to the flowers 
and the starry lights. Her shoulders 
and arms gleamed through a gauzy 
black bodice. A modish knot showed 
the fine abundance of her hair. One 
rose was fastened at her bosom, where 
it flamed in splendid warmth. 

Dr. Ericsson looked at her critically. 
She was more than pretty: she was 
imperfectly lovely, or, rather, beautiful 
without fulfilling conventional canons. 
During quiet moments her face was 
serene and alluring: the dark hair upon 
the pale brow like banded velvet, the 
liquid brown eyes poetically thought- 


26 


A Circle in the Sand 


ful, the mouth appealing. Softness, 
strength, and color wdre all there. But 
in action and expression lay her strong- 
est charm. When the lips smiled, when 
the eyes lightened, and the small, deli- 
cate hands as restless as a French- 
woman’s emphasized her words, Anne 
was irresistible. 

“ I am going to give you a summer 
dinner,” she said, her fingers lingering 
among the roses. 

“ Nothing but roses.? ” 

“ You’d be near Nirvana if that could 
satisfy you. Nora, bring the soup,” she 
added, in a purposely practical tone, as 
she seated herself. 

They were like children together. 
Anne listened attentively as she led the 
old man on to philosophize of life as he 
saw it. She told him of her newspaper 
work, its newness, its delight; of the 
novel she had commenced, and how 
sometimes she rose at dead of night to 
make a note of an idea or a phrase; of 
all her faiths, dreams, and prejudices. 
To him she was piteously youthful. To 


A Circle in the Sand 


27 


her he was old, wise, and weary. He 
had settled all with destiny. She was 
buckling on her armor. It seemed that 
the heart he had lost throbbed in her 
bosom; he longed that the impossible 
might be made possible and she might 
keep it forever so — valiant, free, happy. 

“I suppose you know David Temple 
very well by this time ? ” he asked. 

You’d be surprised if you knew how 
seldom he has spoken to me,” she said, 
resting familiarly on her elbow. “ He 
sometimes seems a marvellously con- 
structed machine instead of a man. He 
works so hard. He seems able to at- 
tend to twenty things at once.” 

“Yes; to lead is in his blood.” 

“ That’s it,” she nodded. “ If he’d 
been born in a forest in tribal days 
they’d have made him chief. Or can’t 
you fancy him a pirate, or a stupendous 
criminal with a horde of cringing fol- 
lowers, or a cardinal with an eye to 
pierce a conscience and subjugate a 
king, or a general like Napoleon, gaz- 
ing indifferently over the fields of the 


28 


A Circle in the Sand 


dead? Do you know,” she said, in an 
awed, childish way, “I like him?” 

“ All women like him,” snapped Dr. 
Ericsson. 

“ Do they ? ” 

‘‘ It’s a feminine instinct which noth- 
ing can kill, to like the man who domi- 
nates you — and who can do without 
you.” 

“ Well, go on,” she said, leaning 
closer. 

“Women and their affairs,” said Dr. 
Ericsson, lighting a cigar, “ engage Da- 
vid Temple’s thoughts very little. He 
is not intolerant, he is simply indiffer- 
ent, although most masculine in the 
gentleness coming from a consciousness 
of his own strength. It seems to me 
as if a woman could never fill his many- 
sided life. There are men born with 
the love of women in their being, and it 
grows with their growth. To possess 
it too strenuously weakens a character 
and often perverts what should be a 
reverence into a taste. To possess it 
with a separateness from the other in- 


A Circle in the Sand 


29 


terests of life suggests the lack of some 
vital, spiritual fibre. I’ve felt this with 
David. If he ever marries it will 
be because his intellect suggests it as 
wise, or because his physical nature 
is enslaved. The two will scarcely 
blend.” 

“Yes, he suggests all you say. By 
the way, tell me about Donald Sefain 
— his stepbrother.” 

“ Oh, have you seen him? ” 

“ This afternoon. His face haunted 
me all the way home.” 

“I see you have Vaudel’s ‘Desert 
Monk’ on your shelf. You’ve read 
it? The pictures are Donald Sefain’s. 
Fine, aren’t they? I half believe he 
made them just to show what he could 
do, and then from ‘ cussedness ’ flung 
down his pen. He’s done no serious 
work since.” 

“ Do tell me about him,” and Anne, 
leaving the table, wheeled a low arm- 
chair to Dr. Ericsson’s knee. 

“ It’s a bit of a story. Can you 
reach me a match? Thank you, my 


30 


A Circle in the Sand 


dear. This is very cosey.” He sat back 
and half closed his eyes. ‘‘ When 
David Temple was about fifteen his 
father, as hard and stern a man as 
ever lived, married a Frenchwoman, 
a widow with a boy of six. Some 
people know and a great many sus- 
pect there never was a Mr. Sefain, and 
the boy Donald was as surely John 
Temple’s son as David, for whom 
he’d have cut out his eyes, he loved 
him so. Well, Mrs. Sefain was a 
beautiful woman, an adventuress with 
the manners of a duchess. I never 
saw her in a brocade dress without 
thinking how well she’d look on one 
of those little pompadour fans, all cov- 
ered with roses and things. Donald is 
the picture of her. I think his eyes 
and smile — the latter too rare, God 
help him ! — would glorify a plain face 
into beauty. After five years of the 
most absolutely perfect marital misery 
Donald’s mother died, and he was left 
in old John Temple’s care. It was a 
hard fate.” 


A Circle in the Sand 


31 


“Why? He didn’t like him? ” 

“ Like him ? He hated him as only 
an intolerant, conscientious man can 
hate. Donald was a constant reproach 
to him and a reminder of his married 
unhappiness. He never let David be 
friends with him, never. You see, 
Donald hadn’t a fair chance. He was 
a lonely little soul.” 

“ Why didn’t he set his teeth and 
make something of himself ? ” said 
Anne, with the defiance of a champion. 

“ Ah, that’s what he should have 
done, exactly ! But he didn’t. Instead, 
at twenty, after leaving John Temple’s 
house, he went from bad to worse. His 
face to-day bears scars of the odds against 
him. He’s a failure. I tried to get near 
him, but he wouldn’t let me be his friend. 
It is one of his perversities to affect the 
poor and mingle with the unfortunate. 
Anything prosperous inspires a morbid 
dislike in him; all that’s deformed, 
shunned, all that lies in shadow, finds 
favor in his sight. He’s a strange 
and silent creature, drinking feverishly. 


32 


A Circle in the Sand 


cultivating his worst instincts, finding 
an unreasonable satisfaction in offering 
himself as a sacrifice to the discontent 
instilled into him through the circum- 
stances of his life.” 

‘‘ I don’t understand why he’s on 
the ‘Citizen’ with David Temple.” 

“ Oh, he simply does work for that as 
well as a few other papers 1 He’s brim- 
ful of talent. David employs him as he 
would a stranger, and pays him for what 
work he turns in. He’s seldom in the 
office.” 

The clock struck nine, and Dr. Erics- 
son started up. 

“Good heavens! And a sick man not 
a mile off is waiting for me! ” 

He got into his coat, kissed her, and 
hurried away. 

She carried the bowl of roses from 
the table to the mantel and stood for a 
moment with her hands upon them, a 
look of disquietude in her eyes. She 
was thinking of Donald Sefain. 


Chapter IV 


FRESH, bright afternoon, a va- 



jt~\ grant from spring coming between 
stretches of torrid heat. 

The stone hall leading from the edito- 
rial rooms to the stairs was deserted as 
David Temple stepped from his office. 
He could hear voices and laughter 
through half-opened doors, the din from 
the streets and shrieking from factory 
whistles sounding at that height like 
the deepening howl of a mob. When 
he turned the corner he saw Anne Gar- 
rick, her hand upon the brass scroll- 
work around the elevator. She looked 
tired and very young. 

A protest leaped into David’s heart. 
He had sometimes experienced the 
same feeling for a city child contentedly 
threading beads in the gutter — a wish to 
transplant it to something more happy. 


33 


34 


A Circle in the Sand 


to a meadow where breeze, sunlight, 
and leafage were a symphony. At the 
thought a grim smile twitched his lips. 
Miss Garrick was weary of peace and 
loved the treadmill work in the noisy 
world. She had told him so. 

“ Have you rung.? ” he asked, reach- 
ing her side. 

“ Yes, but there’s some delay below,” 
said Anne, peering down. 

“ I’ll emphasize the fact that the edi- 
tor and one of the best writers on 
the ‘ Citizen ’ are waiting.” A flash 
of humor came into his eyes, and he 
kept his finger upon the bell until its 
vibrations awoke echoes in the shaft. 
It was no use, and David looked dis- 
tressed. 

“We’ll have to take to the stairs. 
Give me your parasol and let’s make the 
best of it. You can rest by the way.” 

They went side by side down the 
seemingly never-ending iron stairway. 

“ Are you tired ? ” he asked when 
the second landing had been reached. 
“ Wait a minute.” 


A Circle in the Sand 


35 


David took off his hat and stood fac- 
ing her. They were in deep shadow, 
the sounds of life above, below, skim- 
ming around without touching their 
isolation. 

“ Miss Garrick, I’ve wanted to say 
something to you for several days,” he 
said, smiling. “ I want to take back 
what I said about women being unfit 
for newspaper work. You have done 
splendidly and against great odds.” 

‘‘ Oh, do you think so ? ” And the 
color came into Anne’s cheeks. “ I did 
find the work hard, and it’s been so 
hot.” Her glance became a little chal- 
lenging. “ And do you think a woman 
may still be feminine, even if she is not 
an exotic ? ” 

“ Oh, I like the exotic woman! ” said 
David as they went on. “ I like a 
woman sublimely useless, providing 
she’s a lot of other things. You have 
proved your right to the career you’ve 
chosen, but you’re one of a paralyzing 
minority. Why don’t you acknowledge 
it?” 


36 A Circle in the Sand 


His tone was intentionally provok- 
ing, and Anne laughed, her glance a 
negative. 

As they stepped from the shadow into 
the light of the lower hall the glare 
through the archway of the door dazzled 
them. 

“ It’s a lovely day,” said David. “ The 
atmosphere is amazingly clear.” They 
paused for a moment on the doorstep 
and looked at the picture of the city. 
“ Every detail,” he added, “ shows with 
the accuracy of a photograph — the blue 
in the shirts of those laborers, the 
brown of the trench, the violet-green 
of that bit of grass, the flags in the blue 
air. Are you going to walk ? ” he asked 
abruptly. 

“Yes; there’s such a good breeze.” 

“ If you’ve no objection. I’ll walk 
with you.” 

A pulse of exultation quickened in 
Anne’s heart as they went up the 
swarming street, David adapting his 
steps to hers. 

“Tell me,” he said curiously, “what 


A Circle in the Sand 


37 


Dr. Ericsson thinks of your independent 
spirit.” 

“ He takes it entirely for granted.” 

“ I am behind the times, I suppose,” 
he said, with a short laugh. “Well, 
I can’t help it. I don’t like the inde- 
pendent woman. Oh, she has virtues I 
But when woman loses her incon- 
sistency and self-doubt she loses her 
charm. 

“ She needn’t. If she’s in earnest and 
loves it, why shouldn’t she work and 
live alone as I do” — 

“ But you live with your uncle, don’t 
you ? ” 

“No. I am much more comfortable 
as I am. I came here sure of a small 
income. I earn that sum twice over 
now, I live alone, and I’m writing a 
book.” 

“ Really! ” 

They continued in silence, and then 
David looked at her squarely. 

“ I am thinking what an amazing 
gulf lies between you and your great- 
grandmother. Wouldn’t she scold you 


38 A Circle in the Sand 


if she could come back ? Wouldn’t she, 
though ? ” 

“ I dare say,” said Anne placidly; 
“ but I wouldn’t approve of my great- 
grandmother, nor of my grandmother 
either.” 

David threw back his head as a boy 
does before a shout of laughter, cor- 
rected himself, and looked at her with 
weighty seriousness. 

“ Really, impertinence couldn’t go 
farther.” 

Anne’s smile was both naive and 
speculative as she continued: 

“ My grandmothers had no spirit, no 
originality, went in for artistic fainting 
and wrote silly love-rhymes. They were 
as savorless as oatmeal without salt, 
those admirable, chimney-corner wom- 
en. Their husbands thought nothing 
of crying ‘Tush’ at them, and they 
‘ tushed ’ beautifully. Oh, they wouldn’t 
be at all popular to-day.” 

“ But you are not a ' new ’ woman ? ” 
said David, with some awe. 

“No,” and the denial was uncompro- 


A Circle in the Sand 


39 


mising. I hate the ^ new ’ woman. 
You have not classified me correctly. 
I hope I am the awakened woman.” 

I never heard of her before.” 

Well, Fll tell you something about 
her. Without retaining the womanli- 
ness of the clinging heroine of the past, 
and without feeling to a sensible extent 
a desire for progress, she could not ex- 
ist. She is the result of extremes past 
and present.” 

Many of her ? ” 

She’s everywhere. Her privileges 
are so many she’s busy enjoying them. 
There’s little said about her, but every 
one who thinks knows she is the woman 
of to-day.” 

Her earnestness made her face 
strangely lovely, and the thought 
prompted David’s next words. 

Does she like to be pretty? ” 

“ She delights in it. She’s not merely 
a good chum with men, nor is she a 
plaything nor an intellectual machine; 
she’s a woman,” she said, and there was 
music in the word. She believes that 


40 


A Circle in the Sand 


marrying the man she loves — and she 
can’t love the weak, the stupid, the 
hopelessly corrupt — is the culmination 
of the purpose for which she was 
created. She’s not ignorant of the 
existence of evil, but it has not tempted 
or hardened her. But, best of all, she’s 
not a paragon. Her aspirations are 
high and good, her faults alluring. 
Now you know my ideal.” 

By the time her home was reached 
they were very well acquainted. Anne 
felt herself come ver}'^ near the gentlest 
side of David’s nature as she gave him 
her hand. He clasped it earnestly as 
he looked into her untroubled eyes. 

“ New York is dead in summer time,” 
he said irrelevantly. “ All one’s friends 
away! So few people one cares to talk 
to, anyway I ” 

An unreasoning sense of gladness 
filled Anne. She knew he was waiting 
for her to speak. 

“ Dr. Ericsson spends many of his 
evenings here. When you feel inclined, 
come in too.” 


A Circle in the Sand 


41 


“ I will,” he said gratefully. 

And he did. Often after busy days 
during which scarcely a word was 
exchanged between them he would 
find himself strolling through the sul- 
try night to the grateful coolness of 
Anne’s rooms. Dr. Ericsson was gen- 
erally there, but sometimes they were 
alone. 

The unusualness of unhampered 
comradeship with a bright, young, 
and pretty woman, their long, satis- 
fying talks on subjects whimsically 
varied, the independence of Anne’s 
solitude, her courageous position as a 
worker, level with his own as a man, 
appealed to David with a charm new 
in his experience. 

As he grew more and more inter- 
ested his visits increased. They be- 
came good friends. Sometimes while 
the moon looked over the roof-tops and 
the candles flamed in the night breeze 
Anne sang to him. Sometimes Dr. 
Ericsson and she dined with him, 
mostly in cool, suburban places, re- 


42 


A Circle in the Sand 


quiring long drives along the almost 
empty avenues and through the massed 
shadows of the park. Sometimes on 
David’s roof-top, made comfortable 
with rugs and hammocks, they three 
saw the day die and the stars gather 
like eyes to watch the clashing ways 
of life. Every day his fondness for 
her deepened. She was his comrade 
and friend. He felt himself her silent 
champion and protector. 


Chapter V 


“ ¥ "\0 you think Temple will get 
I J here to-night before the paper’s 
out?” And the news editor nervously 
rolled and unrolled the copy he held. 

“ When he says he’ll do a thing, he 
does it,” said Frawley, the managing 
editor, who was covering the pages be- 
fore him with blue lines from his flash- 
ing pencil until they looked like maps 
of a railroad that followed an incon- 
sequent course and met in a labyrinth. 

Anne looked at the clock. It was 
after ten. The pencil dropped from 
her fingers and she pulled the shade 
from above her tired eyes. Since 
seven she had been writing in a race 
against time, and now, her work com- 
pleted, she was tingling with fatigue. 

It was the first of November. The 
summer, unlike any other of her life, 
43 


44 


A Circle in the Sand 


seemed far away. Made up of dusty, 
feverish days and happy nights, it was 
past, like a sleep. Through the win- 
dow before her she could see the fog 
dripping over the city, a curtain of 
sootiness, its folds breaking on the 
angles of houses, the lights of the 
town white splashes on the haze. 
The world looked sullen, as if choked 
under that sooty pall into submission 
and silence. And yet none knew bet- 
ter than she, sitting aloft among the 
chroniclers, of the snarl among the un- 
happy, of the turmoil and crime seeth- 
ing there, and the ambition which 
spared no brother for the uprising of 
self. 

It had been a day of extraordinary 
climaxes. A murder in high places 
had horrified the city. The political 
struggle was hurrying to a crisis. 
The latest telegrams told of disas- 
trous floods in one State, and a strike 
of many thousand miners in another. 

As a result there were to-night more 
striking of bells and the dragging sound 


A Circle in the Sand 


45 


of hurrying feet than were usual even 
during the exciting hours just previous 
to the paper going to press. There 
was expectancy on the absorbed faces. 
Unrest hung in the air like a storm- 
cloud. 

After a week’s absence David Tem- 
ple was momentarily expected. He 
had wired to suspend any arrange- 
ments regarding the assignment of 
reporters to the scene of the strikes 
until his arrival. While the usual 
routine of making the paper went on 
the men were waiting for him. 

Anne was waiting for him too. A 
trembling anticipation swept over her 
as she fancied him coming through the 
open door. He would bring restful- 
ness into the confusion, a visible power 
to the handling of the several prob- 
lems, and it would be good to see him 
again. 

He ought to be here now,” said 
Jack Braidley, strolling over to her 
desk. I hope he’ll let me out of 
Platt’s Peak. I don’t want that assign- 


46 A Circle in the Sand 


ment. Starving miners are not much 
in my line.” 

“ I thought not,” said Anne dryly, 
gathering together the copy headed 
“ The Sunday Page,” which during the 
present stress she edited. “ I never saw 
you look as happy as the day you were 
sent out to inspect and describe the 
Duke of Stockbury’s wedding clothes 
when he came over to marry the sugar 
refiner’s daughter. They were in your 
line.” 

“ Oh, I say, you do chaff a fellow 
horribly! But seriously, I’m playing 
for the dramatic critic’s place. Jove! 
Fancy calling that work — every pretty 
actress smiling at you pleadingly! I 
was made for it. By the way. Miss 
Garrick, why don’t you go on the stage ? 
Beastly work this, for a pretty girl ! ” 

Anne was not listening to him. Lean- 
ing her elbow on the back of the chair, 
her hand curved like a cup to support 
her chin, she was looking at Donald 
Sefain, who had just come in. 

There he was, shabby, silent, a recluse 


A Circle in the Sand 


47 


among the alert crowd. The discon- 
tent in his worn eyes, his hopeless but 
unconquered air, seemed now as always 
like a sad, passionate phrase woven 
unfittingly into the flourishes of a hack- 
neyed tune. 

She wondered if she would ever 
know him, ever learn just what sinu- 
osities of character, what experiences, 
had made him the creature he was. 
This wish had begun to tinge her days. 
Nothing, however, seemed more un- 
likely. They had not exchanged a 
word. He held aloof from her as from 
every one else. 

‘‘ Look at that beast Sefain,” mut- 
tered Braidley. 

Why do you call him that?” And 
Anne turned sharply upon him. 

“ Look at his clothes.” 

They’re not like the Duke of Stock- 
bury’s, are they ? ” 

Besides, he drinks. I saw him drunk 
once in this very room. It was last 
spring, I think. His eyes were fright- 
ful that day. I expected to have a good 


48 A Circle in the Sand 


story about his suicide next morning. 
But fellows like him never kill them- 
selves.” 

Anne moved away and stood near 
Frawley’s desk, just as Donald went up 
to him. 

“ I want to do the pictures for the 
Platt’s Peak strike,” she heard him say, 
in his surly, indifferent tone. 

‘‘Mr. Temple attends to that,” said 
Frawley, strolling over to watch the 
telegrams coming in like mad. 

“ But I can’t wait to see him unless 
he comes within five minutes. I wish 
you’d tell him Pd like to go to Platt’s 
Peak. I don’t suppose there’ll be a 
rush for the place, anyway.” 

“ Damned fussy about his minutes, 
for a beggar,” thought Frawley, but 
answered in a colorless voice, “ All 
right.” 

Donald slouched over to his desk 
and picked up his hat. He had neared 
the door when Frawley, peering over 
the operator’s shoulder at the wire, 
uttered a cry. 


A Circle in the Sand 


49 


“ Good God 1 ” 

Consternation and suspense fell upon 
the place. It was as if a full heart had 
suddenly ceased beating. In the still- 
ness the shrill warnings of fog whistles 
from the bay were eerie, as if witches 
shrieked at the windows. Donald 
paused at the door. Anne stood like 
a stone. 

“Hear this. Temple” — And 
Frawley sank back into a seat, un- 
able to obey his impulse to speak. 

“ What, for heaven’s sake ? ” And 
one of the men waiting seized the 
tape from the operator’s fingers. 

“ Southern express wrecked south 
of Philadelphia. Many dead. David 
Temple fatally injured.” 

There was much more. Details fol- 
lowed, speculation, exclamations of 
dismay and pity; but Anne heard only 
those last four words. They had de- 
scended like a sword, striking strength 
and motion from her body and all but 
one thought from her mind. She stood 
with pale lips, a shadow weighing upon 


5° 


A Circle in the Sand 


her eyes. She shivered as if in the 
clammy dusk of death. There was a 
blur, a grotesque mixing of faces and 
objects, a sense as of being seized by 
a horrible, separating current and torn 
away from all things to which she 
could cling, a sense of crushing loss. 

She sat down before her desk, facing 
the black window where the city lights 
flickered. The horror faded into a pas- 
sionate cry which, though unuttered, 
shook her whole being. David among 
the injured ! David far away, not strong 
and controlling, but lying in voiceless 
pain under the sullen sky! They said, 
“ Injured fatally.” Perhaps it meant 
dying, perhaps it meant dead. Dead! 
The word seemed to take her by the 
throat, hold her, look into her eyes, 
deep into her heart, and laugh at what 
it saw there. 

Nothing in the past mattered beside 
the rich truth that David had been her 
friend, nothing in the future beside the 
craving to touch him and hear him 
speak her name once more. She knew 


A Circle in the Sand 51 

in a revealing blaze the secret of her 
heart that before she had not even 
dimly understood. 

Unconsciously she prayed as she sat 
there staring into the vacuity of the 
window. 

“ Save him! I love him, I love him, 
I love him!” 


Chapter VI 


D ear miss GARRICK ; Your breezy let- 
ter came like a voice from the outside 
world into the solitude of my sick-room. I am 
much better. In a week or two I’ll be myself 
again. The consequences of the accident are a 
treacherously dizzy brain, a bandaged shoulder and 
head, and a great weariness of everything under 
the sun. Your request stupefies me. I never 
heard of such reckless courage. Fancy you out 
among the miners in these times of bloodshed ! 
Do you know what it means ? I can imagine what 
you will say. You are a student of life, and a read- 
ing of selected passages will not content you. 
However, we won’t tear this subject to shreds 
again. 

Of course you know that from a mercantile 
standpoint your report of the strike, your descrip- 
tion of the life of the women in that hopeless place, 
would be most valuable to the paper, and, if you 
still wish to go, please, for friendship’s sake, ask 
Dr. Ericsson to go with you. I will write to him 
too. About the stories. Don’t go into the intri- 
cacies of the strike. Tell the women’s story in a 
52 


A Circle in the Sand 


53 


woman’s way. I’ll feature them in the half weekly 
and Sunday editions. Sefain, whom you have seen 
in the office, is there now. I’ll instruct him to 
illustrate your stories, and, as he does excellent 
work too, they ought to make a hit. The relief 
fund which has been started will be forwarded to 
you for distribution. After all these instructions I 
urgently add — don’t go. 

Faithfully, 

David Temple. 

This letter was held closely in Anne’s 
hand, hidden under the folds of her 
travelling cloak, as the train carried her 
over the hills of Pennsylvania. Dr. 
Ericsson had closed his eyes upon the 
gloominess of his surroundings and 
fallen asleep upon the opposite seat. 
She was free to think uninterruptedly, 
her eyes upon the long lines of win- 
dows curtained with mist and irisated 
with raindrops, the reaches of land 
patched with melting snow, the smoke 
from infrequent cottages struggling in the 
dampness and vanishing groundward as 
if affrighted. 

Ten commonplace days and nights 


54 


A Circle in the Sand 


had passed since sudden grief like a 
flame had illumined her heart and set 
before her eyes its hopeless, passionate 
burden. 

Since then she had been unquiet, the 
happiness of knowing David’s injury 
would not be serious mixed with a 
curious disinclination to see him again, 
and a sense of defeat. It appeared 
irritating that this love should have 
unexpectedly awakened within her 
when she had thought herself proud 
and strong. It seemed as if her senses 
had lightly succumbed to the potency 
of environment, as if passion were a 
mere impulse, and the man treading 
the same path with her a man to love, 
not the man her soul had irresistibly 
sought and found. 

And yet something within her, after 
all reasoning, insisted on being heard. 
It had an ecstatic voice and gave its 
own golden meaning to the dark day. 
She seemed drawn to David by a 
warm, strong hand, and the delight of 
yielding sent a feeling of sublime 


A Circle in the Sand 


55 


weakness over her as comes to one 
wearied who slips the will and sinks 
to sleep. It was a happy fancy and 
hid the meagre land under the hurry- 
ing twilight from her sight. 

Dr. Ericsson gave his body a chilly 
shake and roused himself, opening one 
eye querulously and then the other. 

“You’ll regret taking me as a travel- 
ling companion, my dear. How long 
have I been asleep ? ” 

“ For hours. We’ll get to Platt’s 
Peak in time for dinner.” 

Anne cleared away a spot on the 
glass with her finger and gazed at the 
blankness beyond. “ You’ll be hungry, 
poor dear, won’t you ? ” 

“ Dinner ? Be thankful if we get 
doughnuts, and cabbage or pork, and 
fried bread. I know these places,” he 
grunted. “ Y ou don’t know what you’ve 
run into, young lady. I warned you. I 
might have saved my breath.” 

“ Fancy being able from actual expe- 
rience to describe the pangs of hunger,” 
said Anne, with a laugh. 


56 A Circle in the Sand 


“ Don’t madden me. I’ve arrived at 
the age when I respect a good dinner 
as much as anything on earth. As the 
irreproachable bourgeois said at the 
pantomime when the ballet appeared, 
‘ I wish I hadn’t came.’” 

“You’re in a vile humor to-day,” 
said Anne placidly. “ I’m not.” 

“ Of course you’re not; you’re a 
woman. You’ve had your way and 
you’ve made some one miserable, so 
there you are,” he jerked out, a smile 
in his eyes. “ But truly,” he added, in a 
different tone, “ I had a letter from your 
aunt this morning which annoyed me 
very much. They’ll be back sometime 
in Januar3^” 

“ But you’ll surely be glad to see 
them.?” 

“ Oh, fundamentally of course ! But 
there’s the house to be renovated — not 
good enough as it is. And I am made 
distinctly aware that Olga is to be 
brought here on a husband-hunting 
skirmish. Foreigners evidently have 
been given up as hopeless. My beau- 


A Circle in the Sand 


57 


tiful daughter has no money, you see.” 

He clasped his hands and looked 
belligerent. 

“ Do you remember Olga at all ? I 
took her down to your father’s a few 
times when she was a little thing.” 

“ I remember her very distinctly,” 
and Anne laughed. “ She scratched 
my face once. We quarrelled all the 
time. I remember that a little guinea- 
hen of mine died, and I buried it with 
proper religious pomp, singing over it 
‘ Sister, thou wast mild and lovely.’ 
But Olga wouldn’t have this at all and 
interrupted the services with shrieks 
and dances. We parted the frankest 
of enemies. It will be curious to see 
her again. Do you know she wasn’t 
at all pretty then ? ” 

“ To-day she is a professional beauty 
with no other ambition than to make a 
good match. It will be strange to have 
them back. But you won’t desert me 
then, Anne ? ” And he looked wistful. 

“ I have Mrs. Micawber’s staying 
qualities, you’ll see,” she said gayly. 


58 A Circle in the Sand 


It was dark now. Beyond the win- 
dows lay a tempestuous blackness 
crossed at times by the red and green 
of railroad lights. 

Anne sat back and closed her eyes. 
There was work before her, and she 
meant to do it well. Besides the stub- 
born law she had always followed of 
putting the best of herself into her work, 
there was now a determination to be- 
come a name in the world of journal- 
ism, and all for a reason that made her 
a little ashamed, — the milliner who 
hummed a ballad while she twisted a 
ribbon for a hat, the dairymaid who 
eyed her rows of glistening pans with 
a critical eye while listening for a foot- 
step, shared this ambition with her, — 
simply the longing to appear well in 
one man’s eyes and be loved by him. 

The rain was beating in a drumming 
downpour on the roof of the car when 
the brakeman swung in, a red lantern 
in his hand. As he stood in the door- 
way, the spraj’ driving against his 
crouched shoulders, the bloody blotch 


A Circle in the Sand 


59 


of light against his rain-soaked clothes, 
he seemed a figure of doom, as if the 
misery, cold and death rampant there 
had taken human form and entered, 
cr5fing in hoarse accents: 

Platt’s Peak Colliery ! ” 

Anne’s dreaming fell from her like a 
cloak shrugged from uneasy shoulders 
and she sprang up, her face bright with 
sudden energy. 

On Dr. Ericsson’s arm she plunged 
through the black night to the railway 
station. . This was little more than a 
shed over a flooring and supported by 
begrimed posts. It was dark save for 
the yellow rays from a small window 
opening into a box-like house where two 
telegraph operators sat, the beat of the 
machines stealing out to the shadow 
like the clucking of a tongue. 

A man stood looking in. When he 
swung around, Anne found herself face 
to face with Donald Sefain. They had 
seen each other constantly without rec- 
ognition and without exchanging a 
word. The meeting there under the 


6o 


A Circle in the Sand 


circumstances was a trifle perplexing. 
Donald’s expression was almost forbid- 
ding as he awkwardly pulled off his 
cap. 

“ Miss Garrick, I believe ? ” 

“ How are you, Donald ? ” cried Dr. 
Ericsson, stepping into the light. “ I 
haven’t seen you for an age.” And he 
seized him by the shoulder. 

“ Oh, I’m all right! ” he said indiffer- 
ently. “ You’ll have to walk to the 
hotel. The cab service is very defi- 
cient here. We’ve all got to live like 
paupers whether we like it or not.” 

He hurried ahead, the effort of being 
conventionally polite evidently a new 
role. 

“ I’ll show you the way,” he said 
brusquely. 

“ I say, Donald,” — and Dr. Ericsson’s 
tone was just as genial as when he had 
first spoken, — ‘‘ are things very bad.^” 

Donald’s stormy eyes flashed from 
beneath the rim of his cap. His tone 
was almost insolent. 

“ Hell is loose here,” he said. 


Chapter VII 


I T was a dark morning and Dr. 

Ericsson’s mood matched it. He 
had rheumatism. It had rained for 
three days, was still raining, and they 
had again given him fried bread for 
breakfast. 

Thank God, sunshine and laughter 
are in the world somewhere! It is well 
to remember that here,” he said, pok- 
ing the fire furiously. 

Anne stood near him, drawing on a 
pair of loose dogskin gloves. A fur cap 
fitted like a bandage above her troubled 
eyes. 

^^Tuck me in, Anne dear. Then 
look out, like a good girl, and see if 
there’s a break in the dirty sky.” 

She swept the rag of curtain aside 
and gazed on the marvels of desolation 
before her. The hotel was on one of 

6i 


62 


A Circle in the Sand 


the highest hills, and she could see 
mountains of coal waste looming black 
in the mist; rivers like ink flowing 
beneath gaunt bridges; vast hollows of 
moist, shrunken land above the mines 
spreading like emptied arteries beneath 
the surface; houses, as if shaken by 
palsy, leaning sideways upon erratic 
foundations; and over all a light rain 
driven by a wind from the east. 

“ The sky is as dull as ever,” said 
Anne, still standing with the curtain 
in her hand, and she added in a vehe- 
ment whisper: “ It’s all wrong, uncle. 
There’s something horribly wrong with 
the world.” 

“ Have you just found that out? ” 

“ Last night as we came home from 
the funeral of the man ‘ Red ’ Evans 
killed ” — her voice trembled — “ it 
came to me what these people are. 
They are the moving, untombed 
dead. The starving men guarding the 
black pits, the women, nothing but 
child-bearing blocks, the picker boys 
with their undersized, ghastly bodies, 


A Circle in the Sand 63 ' 


have dead souls, uncle, — quite, quite 
dead.” 

Don’t look so tragic, my dear. One 
comfort — they don’t know how really 
badly off they are; brought up to it, 
you see.” 

I know it,” — the curtain slipped 
from Anne’s fingers, — but that’s what 
makes me fairly sick when I think of it 
— their apathy, their stolid acceptance 
of all. They don’t crave anything ex- 
cept enough food to keep them quiet, 
and they can’t get that. Then one of 
them grows frantic and the rest follow. 
Only now and then there’s a ^ Red ’ 
Evans who has hate enough in him to 
kill the insulting despot who ruined his 
daughter, and who has been crushing 
and cheating him for years. He went 
mad, and now the law is loose hunting 
for ^ Red’ Evans as terriers hunt for a 
rat. If they find him they’ll hang him ; 
and this is justice, of course. But why 
need ^ Red ’ Evans ever have become 
what he was ? Why ? It’s such a big, 
terrible question.” 


64 A Circle in the Sand 


Dr. Ericsson caught her hand and 
kissed it. 

“ You should have put an iron casing 
round those too ready sympathies of 
yours, Anne, before you came here. 
We’ll have a very hard time of it if we 
try to change conditions which have al- 
ways been,” he said mildly. “ Besides, 
I’ve come to the conclusion myself, for 
my own satisfaction, that the small 
things of life are inevitably balanced 
here; so life in total, with all its oppo- 
sitions and wrongs, must be as evenly 
balanced somewhere else. What are 
your plans for to-day? I wish I could 
go with you and Sefain. Confound 
this uncertain leg of mine!” 

“ I’m first going with money to ‘ Red ’ 
Evans’ sister,” said Anne, seating her- 
self on the arm of his chair and opening 
her notebook. Then I want to see the 
interior of a mine, if it’s possible. I’d 
like to get an idea of the graves where 
these men spend their days. To-night 
I must get a long ‘ special ’ ready.” 

“ Sefain must go with you every- 


A Circle in the Sand 65 


where. Don’t forget that. Good-by, 
my dear. Don’t fret over what can’t 
be helped. Remember all workers are 
not like these. Think of niggers sing- 
ing in a lily-field! Ah, I wish I were 
there now! ” 

Anne hurried down the stairs and 
found Donald waiting for her with a 
venerable carriage. He did not see 
her as she came up to him. Standing 
just outside the doorway, an Inverness 
cape flapping around him, he was 
sketching in the salient points of a 
noisy group across the road. One man 
stood on a barrel, his arms held up, 
while in howls he called on the others 
to resist. Around him were a score of 
men, — Huns, Poles, with a smaller 
mixture of Irish and English, — their 
working jeans discarded for antique and 
yellowed broadcloth. They were all 
stupidly listening without sign of an- 
swering spirit, their faces showing that 
they were hungry and shivering. 

Donald was never fully aroused 
except when he worked. His brown. 


66 


A Circle in the Sand 


nervous fingers held the book intently, 
his eyes flashed keenly from the page 
to the men, but his dark face looked 
pinched in the raw morning. His air 
was frankly dissolute. 

When Anne spoke to him, the smile 
of which he always seemed ashamed 
made his face attractive for a second 
before it settled again into the usual 
ungracious quiet. 

The horse went at a crawling pace 
over the hills and across swampy land, 
and they talked of the work for the 
paper as if they were two men. No 
personalities were touched upon. There 
was nothing to brighten the drive, and 
after a long distance covered in the face 
of a mist that made Anne’s cheeks like 
pale, wet roses they stopped before the 
house where “ Red ” Evans had lived. 

The clamor following disgrace sur- 
rounded it. Women bowed by the 
malformations of toil and years stood 
shoulder to shoulder with idle men, all 
talking loudly, their eyes fastened upon 
the sulphur-hued cottage, whose under' 


A Circle in the Sand 


67 


story, from the trembling of the tun- 
nelled land, had been shot out like a 
hag’s jaw. 

She’s in there,” said Donald. They 
say she’s like a crazy woman. I’ll go 
in with you.” 

He tied the horse to a post and 
shielded Anne through the curious 
crowd. After some imperative knock- 
ing and promises of help to the woman 
shrieking abuse from within, the door 
was guardedly opened, and they stood 
before Red ” Evans’ sister. 

Anne shuddered at the face. The 
forces in a soul that damn seemed to 
have set fire to all the softness in the 
woman and left their flames blazing in 
her hollow eyes. With lank, gray hair 
falling to her shoulders, and veined 
hands clinched at her sides, she stood at 
bay in the desolate room, bitten through 
with grief, an epitome of hatred, famine, 
and fear. Unnoticed, Donald swiftly 
made a sketch of her and at a sign from 
Anne slipped out, leaving her to her 
difficult task. 


68 


A Circle in the Sand 


In the warmth of her sympathy and 
gratitude for the visible help she 
brought, the beast in the sufferer was 
conquered, and with wild weeping she 
told the story of her life. She had 
been born on a sheep farm in Scotland 
near a river winding through a valley^ 
and had left it to come to her brother 
when his wife died. Anne saw the lost 
home plainly as the homely sentences 
sketched it — a place of perfume, light, 
and healthy sleep; she realized the 
gloomy change to this black valley 
with “Red” Evans, the morbid slave; 
his daughter, pretty and wild, ready to 
sell her soul for a trinket and at length 
flying away in shame; and the younger 
son, Joe, a picker boy, choked with 
miner’s asthma. 

“ An’ ye’ll write what I tell ye, miss. 
Ye’ll spek the truth. Ye’ll belike mek 
people a bit sorry. Aye, aye,” she said, 
nodding at the dead ashes on the hearth, 
“ye’ll say our hearts are breakin’, that 
shame and hunger’s eno’ to mek men 
distraught; but, ah, miss, ye won’t mek 


A Circle in the Sand 69 


’em feel it; ye can’t mek ’em feel it! 
I’d ha’ to tek my heart out and put it 
inside ye before ye could know what I 
do, an’ what I canna tell ye, miss.” 

Anne could not utter one of the com- 
forting, philosophical things she had 
fancied at her command. She let her 
hand rest for an instant on the forehead 
where care had set a skein of tangled 
lines, gave a circular glance in the 
hopeless room, and went out, her heart 
affrighted. 

Donald was not among the crowd, 
but she went on, expecting him to join 
her. He did not appear, and soon she 
found herself close to the mine around 
which the straggling village was built. 

Before her stood the high, coal-black- 
ened building similar to a wooden light- 
house, which miners call a breaker. 
She knew when the mines were work- 
ing big cars were impelled up to this 
height from the fastnesses of the earth, 
that there the coal was broken, sorted, 
and sent down through iron grooves to 
waiting cars. A feeling of curiosity im- 


70 


A Circle in the Sand 


pelled her to go up. It would be strange 
to stand in a high breaker, look out on 
a level with the hills, fancy the riven 
coal leaping down the rafters, and there 
write her notes of the morning. 

Passing the silent engine-houses and 
empty furnaces, she went up the steep 
ladders to the top. On the last step 
she paused, made suddenly aware that 
the breaker was tenanted. Donald was 
sketching some one. Moving to one 
side, unseen, she saw that the model 
was little Joe Evans, the murderer’s son. 
He had assumed his working position 
beside an empty shoot, his head low- 
ered, his hand extended, as if picking 
the refuse from the sliding coal. He 
had evidently digested the fact that his 
picture was being made for a newspa- 
per, for there was exaltation in his 
face. Hidden in the shadow, Anne 
leaned against one of the posts and 
watched. 

“ The air must be filled with dust 
when the coal comes tumbling down 
before you,” Donald was saying, and 


A Circle in the Sand 


71 


he whistled softly as he waited for a 
reply. 

‘‘ It’s that what gives us the asthma,” 
said Joe, backing up his words by a 
most awful cough. 

“ Got anything on under that rag 
of a coat?” asked Donald cheerfully. 
“ Let’s see.” 

The child’s blue pallor went crim- 
son, but in a half fearful way he 
opened the jacket and bared his puny 
chest. 

“ All right,” Donald nodded. “ I 
wanted to know; that’s all.” And he 
commenced whistling softly, while 
Anne’s heart grew hot. This was ar- 
tistic savagery run amuck. 

“How old are you, Toe?” 

“ Nine.” 

“ What do you think of all day as 
you sit picking the slate from the 
coal ? ” 

“Nuthin’l” His violet eyes were 
vapid wells between grimy lashes. 

“ Do you know what the sea is, 
Joe?” 


72 


A Circle in the Sand 


He shook his head negatively with- 
out any interest. 

“ The great shining sea where ships 
sail — never saw that, Joe? Just turn 
your head a little the other way — so. 
Often hungry, I suppose?” 

Joe smiled wanly as if at a jest. 
There was no need to affirm a self- 
evident truth. 

‘‘ The coal rushing down the shoot 
without a moment of rest must make 
3mur head ache, I should think ? ” 

Joe forgot about the proper angle 
for showing off his knife-blade chin 
and drawn eyelid. He dropped his 
head to his scrap of a hand orna- 
mented by knuckles and nails beyond 
redemption. His eyes looked up with 
unquestioning patience. 

“ It always aches. It’s achin’ now.” 

A sigh came from the dry mouth, 
and it had the effect of a clarion call 
on Donald. The apathy went from 
him. He flung his book to the floor. 
His face was twitching. His eyes 
burned. 


A Circle in the Sand 


73 


“ My God, child, how terrible you 
are ! ” Kneeling, he brought his face 
to a level with Joe’s, his hands grasp- 
ing the boy’s shoulders. 

“ Don’t be afraid, Joe. Don’t cry. 
I’m not mad,” he said, a sob creeping 
between his set teeth. “ Oh, you poor 
little chap, you sad-eyed little slave! 
Oh, hungry and sick and old, and only 
nine, picking the coal the whole day 
through, thinking of nothing and 
breathing death! Joe! Joe! Where is 
your God and mine, that a child like 
you exists under the sky ? ” 

Fascinated, shrinking, Joe looked 
into his eyes and said nothing. Anne 
could hear her heart in the stillness, 
her eyes fastened first on Donald’s dis- 
carded sketch-book, then on his kneel- 
ing figure. 

“Joe,” he said, after a long silence, 
and now his voice was quiet, “ some- 
thing wonderful is going to happen to 
you, something better than your starved 
mind can understand. I’m going to 
take you to a great big city with me. 


74 


A Circle in the Sand 


I’m going to give you good things to 
eat, better than anything you ever 
tasted, — warm clothes, too,” he said, 
slipping his hand through the broken 
jacket and laying it on Joe’s flesh. 
‘‘You shall see the sea and everything 
that boys love. Oh, I’ve never loved 
anything, but I’ll love you! You’ll be 
a happy boy yet, if it’s not too late ” — 
he groaned defiantly — “ if it’s not too 
late. Oh, you poor little baby, with 
your terribly wise eyes, will you come 
with me.? Joe, will you.?” 

Anne made her way down the shak- 
ing ladders without being heard. Her 
swollen heart seemed crowding her 
throat. She stood in the chilling rain, 
quivering with excitement. She had 
had her first glimpse into Donald’s 
soul, and it had terrified her. 

It was still early when they returned 
for lunch to the hotel. Joe, stunned 
into silence and with round eyes, ac- 
companied them. 

“ I’m going to adopt him,” was all 
the explanation of his presence Donald 


A Circle in the Sand 


75 


had given. He was again as unread- 
able as a mollusk, and Anne could 
almost believe the scene in the breaker 
had been of her imagining. 

Hours afterward, as she sat in the 
rainy dusk writing an impassioned ac- 
count of the day, a faint knock sounded 
on her door. Donald stood outside, 
very pale, an unusual eagerness in his 
manner. 

‘‘ If you want to see what a mine 
looks like. Miss Garrick, this will be 
your only chance. The sheriff and his 
men have come over with militia, and for 
the past hour the engines have been 
going, pumping down air, you know. 
They think that perhaps ‘ Red ’ Evans 
is hiding there.” 

“ But could he ? How could he get 
down if the cage wasn’t working?” 

“You see, besides the cage there’s an 
iron bar — a sort of ladder with flat 
prongs laid upon it, the whole only half 
a yard wide. This goes down through 
a separate opening. It’s put there as a 
precaution in case of explosions or in- 


76 A Circle in the Sand 


jury to the cage, but it’s a matter of life 
and death to use it. A desperate man, 
however, wouldn’t hesitate to take the 
one chance. The sheriff fancies ‘Red’ 
Evans may be clinging to the bar a 
good way down beyond sight, yet not 
too far from the air. I don’t believe it. 
It’s almost absurd. But they’re going 
down and will take us along.” 

“ All right,” said Anne. “ But I 
won’t tell Dr. Ericsson. He might be 
nervous.” 

Twenty minutes later they were 
again at the mine. The scene was 
animated now. Lanterns like the eyes 
of grotesque animals shot from one point 
to another in the falling night. A line 
of soldiers controlled the swell of the 
mountain, and, above, the strikers with 
their families sullenly watched. From 
wooden sheds came the braying of 
mules. Four men stood near the 
cage, which resembled a huge brass 
boiler with a round opening for air 
at a man’s height. The hissing and 
throbbing of engines and the sound 


A Circle in the Sand 


77 


of many voices filled the valley with 
life. 

Anne’s fingers were unsteady as she 
put on the miner’s protecting outfit. 
This was a rubber blouse to her knees 
and a wide-brimmed glazed hat, a little 
oil lamp flickering in front just above 
the brim. 

Ready ! ” said the sheriff, and the 
wire rope throbbed. 

The cage shot down with tremendous 
speed. The lamps on the hats flared 
in the gust through the circular open- 
ing in the wall. It was a breathless, 
anxious descent. Anne closed her eyes 
and stood like one in a trance until 
the journey was completed. 

When by Donald’s side she stepped 
into the underworld, an overwhelming 
depression seized her. She had not 
dreamed how the knowledge of being 
two thousand feet beneath the ground 
she trod so lightly could chill a heart. 
The rank, moist place smelled of death. 
She gazed at the jagged ceiling of 
coal upheld by tremendous tree-trunks 


78 A Circle in the Sand 


placed at regular distances and forming 
a rude aisle, the fungi on props and 
beams, the green pools in every de- 
pression, the empty mule-carts and 
discarded picks. Just where the hat- 
lamps flung their beams there was 
light, and beyond lay appalling mys- 
tery. 

“You’d better sit on this knoll;” 
and Donald, circling his lantern over 
his head, showed her the up-hill recesses 
of a vast, worked-out chamber. “ I’ll 
go with the men down this gangway a 
bit. We’ll not be far away. See, 
they’re looking in the mule-carts. I’d 
like to be on the spot if they get him. 
I want his face.” 

“ I’ll be alone here ! ” was Anne’s in- 
ward exclamation. “You won’t be 
long,” was what she said, and sat down 
apparently calm. 

“We’re just going down this gang- 
way.” And Donald turned away, his 
fingers tingling to sketch her as she sat 
there, the light flaring above her eyes. 

Ten minutes passed. Anne saw 


A Circle in the Sand 


79 


the men entering the various hewn 
chambers, plunging their lanterns into 
clumsy carts, leaping into pits. Her 
heart seemed to have ceased beating. 
She found herself waiting for a cry of 
triumph and fancied the searchers drag- 
ging out a struggling, stormy-browed 
figure, the murderer at bay. 

Then an unlooked-for thing happened. 
Without warning the moving throng of 
figures turned a corner, and she was 
alone, in silence save for the dropping 
of water, in darkness save for the light 
upon her hat. She seemed to become 
stone surrounded by an atmosphere of 
horror. 

This paralyzing spell broke, and her 
blood crept in cold currents around her 
spine, for up in the black hollow behind 
her she heard a quick breath, then 
another, and a piece of coal tinkled 
down the declivity to her feet. The 
breathing came closer. It was just 
behind her now. There was a step, 
and she knew a horror unnamable 
stood at her back. She did not turn or 


8o 


A Circle in the Sand 


move the stiff fingers clasping her knee, 
or flicker an eyelid. 

She was roused from the weight of 
terror by a sight to haunt her while she 
lived. A man grovelled before her, his 
supplicating clutch upon her knee. The 
uncertain flame of her lamp flung blue 
splashes into the hollows of his face. 
His red hair was glued to his throat. 
The red-streaked flannel shirt was open 
to the waist, showing his hairy chest. 
Mildew and coal-black covered him. 
There was a mortal hunger in his 
glance. She was gazing at ‘‘ Red ” 
Evans and he was praying for his life — 
but praying was a mild word for the 
spurting whispers from his gaping 
mouth as his eyes shot from right to 
left in fear of the returning hunters. 

“ Didn’t set out for to kill Binkley, 
as God hears me, miss. No, ’twas fair 
fight, an he druv me mad. I flung the 
stone. I didn’t believe him dead till he 
fell back, wi’ the blood bubblin’ from 
him. I been hidin’ here for two days, 
starvin’ on that ladder, ’tween earth 


A Circle in the Sand 


8i 


and hell 5 crawled down when the en- 
gines begun to work; been lyin’ on mj- 
face up here ever sence. They’ll hang 
me. Don’t let ’em. Help me. I’ve 
had a hard life eno’ ’thout hangin’ at the 
end o’t. Oh,” and the word was a long 
shudder, “ my God, for one chance ! I 
never had noan. One chance — one ! ” 

It seemed to Anne as if a great length 
of time had passed, as if herself and her 
life were myths, and nothing in all the 
world was as positive as this man’s 
misery and his claim. She sat motion- 
less with strained, bright eyes. 

He had taken another’s life, it was 
clear. She was a newspaper woman, 
face to face with an important opportu- 
nity. If she gave the murderer to his 
pursuers, the “ Citizen ” would have 
gained a story unshared by its rivals. 
As a newspaper woman she should 
make the most of this moment. She 
hesitated. The man’s eyes looked up 
at her like a famished dog’s. As a 
newspaper woman, yes; but as a 
woman, no. 


82 


A Circle in the Sand 


She sprang up, fired by the desire to 
save him. His eyes were terrible as 
he crouched in the slime at her feet. 
He had suffered enough. 

“ Come along,” she said, her voice 
harsh with fear as a man’s laugh dis- 
tantly awakened echoes in the caverns. 
“They’ve already searched the mule- 
carts. Climb into this one. They 
won’t look again^ Lie down low — so. 
I’ll put my cloak over you. Try to 
breathe more softly. Hush! They’re 
coming.” 

Donald hurried toward her first, and 
found her sitting where he had left 
her. 

“Wagner said he’d come back and 
stay near you,” he said hurriedly, as he 
wiped his brow. “ I’ve just found out 
that he sneaked on, the little beast.” 

“Did you find any trace of Evans.?” 
she managed to ask. 

“ No, he’s not here. They might 
have known that. You’re shivering. 
Why, where’s your cloak .? ” 

“ Say nothing about that,” she said 


A Circle in the Sand 83 


in sudden fear, springing up. “ Manage 
to have the others go up first. I’ll ex- 
plain after. They must go up first. 
Leave me here.” 

The cage had been very crowded 
coming down, and when every worked 
out recess had been searched the men 
were glad to let the newspaper people 
wait for a second trip. 

“Well, that’s settled,” Anne heard a 
man say, his throat}' tones inflated with 
satisfaction. “ He ain’t in the mine, he 
ain’t on the ladder, and damn him wher- 
ever he is.” 

The cage leaped beyond her sight. 
Donald, with the ineffectual light mak- 
ing big shadows leap around him, came 
down the alley and stood before her. 
He knew some disclosure was trem- 
bling on her lips. 

“We’re alone now,” he said. “You 
look awful. Take a little.” 

He held out a flask of whiskey, and 
Anne greedily swallowed a mouthful. 
It revived her and made her brave 
again. She listened to the creaking of 


84 A Circle in the Sand 


the wire ropes, but instead of fear her 
eyes flashed with determination. 

“ I’m going to trust you, Donald Se- 
fain,” she said slowly, rising and touch- 
ing his arm. “Yes, I’m going to trust 
you. I believe in your pity and your 
honor.” 

His eyes answered her; he held his 
breath. 

“ I know where ‘ Red ’ Evans is,” 
she said. “ He’s near us, hidden under 
my cloak. He begged his life — oh, 
how he begged it ! — and I couldn’t give 
him up. He prayed for one chance. 
I’ll give it to him. Will you?” 

Anne pressed her hands upon his 
shoulders, the divinity of a mediator in 
her eyes. 

A flood of feeling trickled over 
Donald’s heart, something never felt 
before ; it was like a fire loosening some 
callous growth, and seeming by a mir- 
acle to turn it to sunshine within him. 

“Yes, yes,” he said, the perplexing 
joy still controlling him. “ What can 
we do ? ” 


A Circle in the Sand 85 


There’s only one way ^ Red’ Evans 
can escape/’ she continued rapidly. 

I’ve money with me. I’ll give it to 
him. But that doesn’t help matters 
while he’s hidden here. The only way 
he can leave the mine unquestioned is 
by putting on your blouse and hat, and 
taking your place when I go up. Once 
he’s freed, I’ll return for you. This 
is my plan — to pretend I lost some 
money and come back with these 
things I wear secreted under my own 
cloak for you, to slip them to you, 
have you put them on, step out un- 
noticed and join the searchers for the 
money. It will be easy enough. 
We’re all of a pattern in these things, 
and with the collar up and one’s face 
turned away they make a good dis- 
guise. But should there be any com- 
ment you’d have to insist that you 
came down with me the second time. 
Are you willing? Will you risk it? 
I promise to return for you.” 

In answer Donald took off the long 
blouse and hat and saw Anne’s eyes 


86 


A Circle in the Sand 


darken with gratitude. She pointed 
to the mule-cart. 

“ He’s there, and you’ll need to give 
him some whiskey, he’s so weak.” 

After putting out the light upon his 
hat, which had begun to flicker, Donald 
stepped across an oozing stream and 
leaned over the cart. 

“Evans! Evans! Look up! Here’s 
your chance. This hat and blouse ” — 
He broke off abruptly. “ Why doesn’t 
he answer?” 

He bent nearer and touched the head 
and face of the hidden man. 

“ Oh, if he’s fainted how can we save 
him? There isn’t a moment,” whis- 
pered Anne, in a frenzy of fear. 

Donald climbed into the mule-cart 
and plunged down. 

“ He’s dead! ” 

The words rang out. The echoes 
carried them and played with them. 
No need of plans, sacrifice, danger. 
Freedom and the hangman were alike 
impossible and indifferent to “ Red ” 
Evans now. 


A Circle in the Sand 87 


Anne saw Donald’s face lifted, 
touched by the awe always follow- 
ing the wake of the great mystery, 
but only for a few seconds before her 
lamp went out with a long leap, as if 
protesting against some new uncanny 
presence, and they were in darkness 
with the dead. 

Anne sank down, her folded arms 
resting against a wet wall. Everything 
seemed to slip into a mist; she felt 
numbed, vanquished, when, like a prom- 
ise of good, Donald’s groping hand 
sought hers and held it firmly. They 
did not speak. It was a burden even to 
think of the horrors surrounding them — 
the masses of coal not far above their 
heads, creaking like a lazy monster 
settling itself, the whimpering of flying 
rats, and the knowledge that beside 
them lay a dead man, a look of affright 
on his face. 

After a while it became evident that 
something delayed the return of the 
cage. Hours seemed to crawl by as 
they sat there, hand in hand, scarcely 


88 


A Circle in the Sand 


speaking until it became imperative to 
talk and let sound trouble the black pall 
dividing and overhanging them. 

Then something happened that seemed 
to Anne beyond belief. Donald in hesi- 
tating tones began speaking of himself. 
To see the lips of the Sphinx melt into 
a smile could scarcely have been more 
astounding to her. She listened, under- 
standing how the sights and sounds of 
that terrible day and the intimate hand- 
clasp in the blackness had aroused the 
inner self he so consistently silenced. 

Her heart smarted for him as she 
heard the halting story of his childhood. 
She could see him left orphaned, under 
an unfriendly roof, no natural love ex- 
cusing his faults, loneliness eating into 
him. Loneliness! It was the word on 
which his life had reared its twisted 
structure. 

In words that burned he sketched the 
difference between David’s place and 
his in John Temple’s house — David, 
secretly loved by him always and bit- 
terly envied; David, the figure in the 


A Circle in the Sand 89 


white light which he might adore, but 
never follow. He told her how man- 
hood came and the bitter knowledge of 
all. He was despised, superfluous, and 
the determination took root to fulfil the 
promise of his dark origin, to sink to 
the level considered fitting. 

A stronger nature would have 
doggedly risen, no doubt. But the 
other was easy, natural, and had not 
been without joy. The poor, the un- 
happy like himself, had understood and 
loved him. For the rest he had grown 
content to tear principles to rags, revel 
in the mud, live for the moment, and go 
with flags flying to ruin and death. 

“ Why didn’t you try to do well ” 
Anne asked urgently. 

“ I was afraid,” he said, in a lifeless 
tone. “ I thought it wouldn’t do for me 
with the inherited tendencies of which 
I was so constantly reminded. Besides, 
no one cared. That was it. It’s all 
well enough to talk of doing right, but 
when your instinct leads you to the 
wrong and there’s not a soul on earth 


90 


A Circle in the Sand 


to care a pin if you’re fished out of the 
river, a boy — at least most boys — 
would get into an easy stride on the 
wrong road.” 

“ No, you needn’t have gone,” she 
said passionately. 

“ I’m not trying to excuse myself.” 

“ But you’re not hopeless, are you ” 

“ I don’t know,” he said slowly. “ I 
ought to be. I have been. But to- 
night, somehow, I wish I could begin 
over again.” 

He heard a sob. All Anne had felt 
during the trying day and the pathos of 
this confidence had touched her beyond 
endurance. She wept unrestrainedly 
from a full heart. She could not see 
Donald’s eyes nor how they grew intent 
and unbelieving. It seemed impossible 
that he should hear a woman’s sobs for 
him, tears for him. They were terrible 
and racked him, but they were sweet 
too. 

Before he could fully accept the won- 
derful occurrence as true, and before 
Anne could control herself to speak. 


A Circle in the Sand 


91 


the grating of the wire ropes in the shaft 
cautiously commenced. 

A light sprang into Donald’s face, 
and despite the opposing forces tearing 
him like teeth he pressed her hand and 
said, in a whisper that was slow and 
difficult: 

“ If I do make anything of myself, if 
I ever do, it won’t be because it’s right, 
nor for society, nor even for shame of 
what I am, but because you care. Say 
that you do.” 

“Yes,” she said, “I care. Indeed 
— indeed — I do I ” 

When they entered the cage, Anne’s 
tear-swollen face needed no explanation. 
To have been kept in a mine for an 
hour without a light because part of the 
machinery had slipped its groove, and 
to have chanced upon “ Red” Evans, 
dead, was enough to unnerve any 
woman. 

Only Anne and Donald ever knew 
the truth of that hour. They stepped 
into the night and saw the moon filling 
the place with phosphoric light, making 


92 


A Circle in the Sand 


a glory of the drenched earth. More 
marvellous than this white atmosphere 
of peace after the stormy day, was the 
friendship which had put forth sudden 
flower in silence and night. 


Chapter VIII 


FTER three weeks among the 



mines, Anne returned to New 
York. She had left the city frowning 
under fogs: it greeted her home-com- 
ing with a cold sky as blue as in sum- 
mer, the peace of freshly fallen snow, 
and the glint of icicles in a vivid sun- 
light. 

After luncheon as she prepared for 
her first visit to the office, everything 
was forgotten but the thought of seeing 
David again. He would greet her as a 
friend returning: she would regard him 
with a new vision, the knowledge of 
her love, a secret to be sternly kept. 

When she walked from the elevator 
to the editorial rooms, she was pale, 
expectant, her heart stirring with a 
nervous excitement. Never before had 
she crossed that hall, subdued by this 


93 


94 


A Circle in the Sand 


uncertainty and joy, nor opened the 
door, wishing, yet dreading, to hear 
David Temple’s voice. 

The first circuitous glance told her 
he was not there, nor in his private 
room beyond, for the door stood open. 
But the scarred man was in evidence 
and vaulted over his desk to meet her, 
the news editor took the trouble to wipe 
his hands on a blotter before greeting 
her, and the dramatic critic, who didn’t 
like women anywhere, and hated them 
in a newspaper office, blew his nose 
nervously. Donald Sefain alone at his 
desk, with frowning brow, looked at her 
once and looked down, white to the 
lips. 

Jack Braidley swung in, the tall hat 
he wore on all occasions pushed far 
back, half a dozen actresses’ photo- 
graphs protruding from his pocket. In 
his excitement at seeing Anne he 
dropped the best cigar he had borrowed 
that day, and rushed forward to seize 
her hand. 

But he had to make room for Pete, 


A Circle in the Sand 


95 


who danced a hornpipe on a desk, hav- 
ing left the sporting editor’s side while 
the promise of a tip on the coming 
prize-fight trembled on his lips. 

Anne patted Pete’s bitten, dirty hand, 
thrust impulsively into hers, then looked 
over at Donald. He was bending 
above a sketch, and she was struck 
by the contrast between his sunken 
cheeks and the faces of the men around 
her. 

As if doing a most usual thing, she 
walked past the little group to his desk. 
She could feel the consternation of the 
watchers as she bent over, facing the 
worker, her back to the rest. 

You’ve not spoken to me,” and the 
smile upon the lifted, crimson lip was a 
frank invitation to good-fellowship. 

The blood rushed to Donald’s face, 
his eyes fell. A glance over her 
shoulder at the men he had always 
striven to antagonize was sufficient to 
bring the old gloom to his eyes, the 
defiance to his manner. 

You’re very kind,” he said coldly; 


96 A Circle in the Sand 


“ but I’m used to being ignored. In 
fact, I prefer it.” 

Anne regarded him thoughtfully and 
read him aright. He hesitated, he was 
not sure of her, of himself. Habitude 
had become a garment fitting like 
another skin ; it was a risk to discard it, 
for, hateful though it might appear, there 
was shelter in its folds. But she was 
not to be so easily put aside. 

‘‘ I’m going to annoy you, neverthe- 
less,” she said coolly. You want to 
break our pretty compact. Well, I’m 
not going to let you. I can be persist- 
ent, Mr. Sefain. I can be intensely dis- 
agreeable. But most people end in 
liking me, and so shall you. Hereafter 
we are to be friends. You said so. 
Come, shake hands.” 

Challenge and entreaty were in her 
eyes. Donald hesitated only a second. 
His hand touched hers. Obeying an un- 
controllable impulse he beat back the 
painful reserve tempting him to be un- 
gracious, and pressed the slender fingers 
painfully. It was more than the most 


A Circle in the Sand 


97 


eloquent acknowledgment of her power 
from another man. In the garish sun- 
light of this prosaic, dusty place, the 
words spoken in the lonely mine had 
been ratified by that handclasp, and 
Donald had assumed a new, important 
interest in the eyes of his companions. 

At five o’clock Anne left the office. 
It was a winter evening to fill the mind 
with light, the heart with hope. The 
gloom of the mines had lain heavily 
upon her, their horrors had dragged 
her heart-strings, but in this cold, white 
world, as she moved among the quick- 
stepping throng, she tingled again with 
the joy of living. 

Instead of going home, she took the 
car as far as Madison square. When 
she alighted and looked around she felt 
as if moving with a thousand others in 
a magical place. People met here in 
converging streams and poured away in 
every direction, touched by the long 
lances of spectral brilliancy coming 
through riven clouds at the west. 
Blending with this was the purplish- 


98 A Circle in the Sand 


pink lustre of the many electric lights 
around the snowy square, and the 
spreading glow from an early-risen 
moon crossed by a tangle of denuded 
boughs. 

She went lightly on, touched in pass- 
ing by all sorts and conditions of peo- 
ple, and hearing infinitesimal bits of a 
hundred conversations. She knew that 
solitude in a vast crowd which can 
be despair or peace according to one’s 
mood. Then what seemed a marvel- 
lous thing happened : one came out of 
the moving mass and spoke her name. 
It was David Temple, the light from 
the west on his face. 

‘‘ Anne ! ” he said gladly, and again 
“ Anne ! ” 

The pallor and thinness his illness 
had left touched her with pity, and this 
weakness in his strength attracted her 
powerfully. 

“ I’m so glad to see you ! ” and he 
held her hand. 

He turned homeward with her. 
They went down the broad avenue 


A Circle in the Sand 


99 


sinking rapidly into shadow. It was a 
wonderful hour to Anne. The witch- 
ery of the night was in her blood ; the 
love growing so silently and strongly 
within her filled her with sweet trouble. 

Hours afterwards she sat before the 
fire, thinking of David’s every look and 
word, and in her open hands lay a bunch 
of violets he had bought for her from 
an Italian boy. Their breath was a 
caress, as his voice speaking her name 
had been. He had never before called 
her Anne. It must be so he thought of 
her. 

A sense of jo}^ made her light- 
headed. She was something to him ! 
The light in his earnest eyes had told 
her that ! The world was beautiful. 
It was good to be alive, young, free, as 
she was. Sorrow surely was but a 
word. Hope and love were real, and 
they were hers. While she lived she 
would never forget that December 
evening. It had been a little thing — a 
chance meeting in a crowd, a surprised 
word, a treasured look, a memory to 


lOO 


A Circle in the Sand 


have a never-dying brilliancy, a jewel 
connecting links in the chain of events. 

When she put away her dreaming, 
and sat before the desk to continue on her 
novel, it was late. The idea of the story 
had been with her all day ; she had felt 
herself en ra'p'port with her characters, 
the glow of creation had seized her as 
she walked among the crowd on Madi- 
son square. 

Now her pen lay idle. Fancy re- 
treated before the personal interests 
holding her, as the sun, though brill- 
iantly shining, may be hidden from the 
gazer by the intervention of one leaf. 
There was too much of self in every 
heart-beat, too much of love and the 
Might Be. The thrilling consciousness 
of one face barred her entrance to the 
imagined land. She was so happy she 
could not write. 

Lingeringly she closed the desk and 
drew the violets towards her. 


Chapter IX 


B y the middle of December even 
the most careless in the office of 
the “ Citizen ” had commented upon the 
change in Donald Sefain. He was no 
longer the voluntary recluse, a man 
parading his vices, eager to be judged 
by them alone. He had learned to 
believe in his possibilities. His fettered 
nature, feeding on all that was rotten, 
had risen like a dazed, hungry thing 
following an instinct for better food and 
freedom. Ambition, a rebellious pris- 
oner always, had revived in him after he 
had striven to crucify it. It called to him 
in the long nights, in his lonely walks, 
and its voice was somehow Anne’s: 

“ What have you done with your 
life ? ” 

The assertion of his best instincts had 
left their marks upon the outer man. 


lOI 


102 


A Circle in the Sand 


His antagonism and gloom had almost 
vanished; so had his untidiness and air 
of general dissoluteness. He carried 
himself better, his clothes were better, 
and they were worn as if he respected 
them and himself. 

As his habits mended and his work 
steadily improved David Temple treated 
him as a worker whom he prized. A 
closer degree of intimacy between the 
two men seemed impossible. They saw 
each other seldom, save in the office. 
But Anne was the friend of both. 

David visited her less often than in 
the summer, his engagements were so 
many, but every hour he could spare 
was spent in her pretty, out-of-the-way 
rooms. He let the social mask fall when 
with her as with no one else. Any one 
seeing him pacing up and down her 
room, a privileged cigar between his 
fingers, as he indulged in brilliant non- 
sense, laughing like a boy when he 
pulled her pet theories to bits as if he 
blew away loose rose-petals, would 
scarcely have known him. 


A Circle in the Sand 103 

Anne loved these hours with him, 
and her happiness went with her, ab- 
sorbing her thoughts to the detriment 
of the art so dear to her. The pen lay 
dry upon the sheets of her novel. She 
no longer struggled against the passion- 
ate effacement of self in another’s being. 
She did not torment her heart by look- 
ing for a growing love in David’s eyes. 
She was content to drift. It was evi- 
dent to all that he was very fond of her. 
He sought her familiarly. She knew 
nothing of his life beyond the small 
horizon of her own, and feeling an 
anticipative joy which seemed to melt 
her future with his, she was content. 

Dr. Ericsson had much to engross 
him and keep him away. The wild 
winter weather had brought the usual 
illnesses, and the Waverly-place house 
was in chaos, preparing for the arrival 
of his wife and daughter after an 
absence of eight years. 

Anne had plenty of leisure, and she 
gave much of it to Donald Sefain. 
Between them they made some of those 


A Circle in the Sand 


104 


winter nights idyls of joy for little Joe 
Evans. He was very ill. Giving way 
to rest after inured hardship seemed 
like giving way to grief, and his weak 
body collapsed. 

He was in Donald’s new home, — 
three small rooms in a street a short 
distance from the “ Citizen.” They 
were cheap apartments, but hopefully 
clean, presided over by a “ lone ” 
woman, Mrs. Mulligan, who lived on 
the floor beneath. 

Anne often went home with Donald 
in the swift-falling winter dusks, and 
stepping from the hall into the firelight, 
she would feel as if summer had come 
across the snow and kissed her. The 
room was always fragrant from a bunch 
of flowers, the kettle always singing, 
the lamp shaded. 

“Ah, Joe, dear, if yez had seen me 
whin I was young! ” she had surprised 
Mrs. Mulligan saying once as she knit- 
ted beside the pillowed chair where Joe 
reclined, pale from the languor of un- 
healthy sleep. “ There was a sight for 


A Circle in the Sand 


105 

ye! The girls of to-day, with their 
crotched-in bodies and white cheeks 
stuck to the bone, — what are they? 
Ah, avick, girls were different in moy 
toime ! Why, I shtud fourteen stone, 
weighed in me stockings. Me hair 
shtud out loike eaves on both soides of 
me head, alanna, ’twas so thick. As 
fer me cheeks,” she added, in a climax of 
triumph, they shtuck out loike apples, 
and were that red ye cud bleed them 
with a shtraw.” 

On nights like these Donald’s nature 
seemed to expand and exult. He sur- 
prised Anne by his humor, his mocking 
grace as host, his boyish play with Joe, 
who adored him. Sometimes when he 
read aloud after dinner and Mrs. Mul- 
ligan sat motionless as the Sphinx save 
for the darting needles, Anne knelt on 
the floor, her arms around the boy. His 
feverish mouth would creep close to 
her ear, and he would tell her how he 
loved Mr. Sefain, and how he was never 
to go back to the mines, never. Anne 
would assure him of this while holding 


io6 A Circle in the Sand 

him to her and kissing him in a little 
storm of love, and then her eyes would 
rove over him, his hands with no more 
substance than claws, dry and hot, his 
hungry eyes seeming to hold life like a 
picture before them in an endeavor to 
see all quickly before the short day 
ended. 

It was Donald who showed Anne 
some of the singular sides of the city’s 
life. 

During this season of pure frost when 
the electric wires spanning the town 
were turned into glacial ribbons, and 
the noise of traffic on the frozen ground 
was like the clamor from brass, she 
often found herself treading the nar- 
row, uphill streets in the lower quarter 
of the city to see some marvellous 
“ find ” of his. 

Once it was an old Russian musician, 
a political exile. The room they found 
him in was wretched, but in a corner 
stood a samovar of copper fit for a 
prince’s table. This and the Amati on 
the old man’s knee were the only visible 


A Circle in the Sand 


107 

relics of a sumptuous past. Bending 
over the decaying fire, he had played 
wild and terrible music for them, which 
awoke strange fancies. It seemed to 
whisper of a spirit haunting a familiar 
but empty house where moonlight 
streamed through the bare windows ; it 
shrieked of shipwreck, mumbled of 
witches dancing in a haggard dawn, 
prayed for life while the block and the 
headsman waited. The unsyllabled 
desolation of the exile’s life, it had 
haunted her for days. 

Although working in the office of a 
world-known newspaper, she had never 
seen the wonders of the mechanism used 
in its construction until one midnight 
Donald took her to the press-room. 
There was a weighty but soundless vi- 
bration as she went down the stone 
stairs, but when the iron door was 
pushed back the noise was so tremen- 
dous it leaped out like a bar and struck 
her. A gust of air accompanied it which 
seemed to suck her down the ladder-like 
stairway against her will, until, dazzled 


io8 


A Circle in the Sand 


and bewildered, she stood on a little 
bridge overlooking a plateau of steel 
that leaped and shivered in gigantic 
sockets. Bare-chested men like sweat- 
ing pygmies stood between the big 
machines, and above them, a monster of 
many jaws, the roaring presses snapped 
up the paper. On the first page there 
was a portrait of a murderer, and this 
was repeated all over the gas-lit space. 
On every side the sinister visage with 
e3'^es turned obliquely toward her came 
riding into view, and the glittering 
clamps seized it, seemed to crush it fu- 
riously’, until, like the stone Sisyphus 
rolled, it appeared again, and the task 
was incessantly continued. 

It was Donald who showed her the un- 
derground restaurants where the news- 
paper “ hacks ” plunged in the early’ 
morning hours for coffee that was like 
a fluid blessing. She went with him to 
all sorts of queer and storied nooks. 
Once they had tea in a place known only 
to a few privileged scribblers. This 
was in a sort of cul-de-sac, a swinging 


A Circle in the Sand 


109 

lamp lighting the way up the long alley. 
Separated from the noise of the town and 
waited upon by a genial French host and 
his wife, they had seemed in Paris, for 
the secretive niche in the crowded street 
might have strayed from one of Hugo’s 
stories and settled, out of countenance, 
in a commercial atmosphere. 

Together they went to well-known 
studios where all was harmony and 
beauty — idols sombrously contempla- 
tive, mediaeval windows, wood-carving 
from India and rugs from Damascus. 
She had watched the last touches put to 
a landscape, had seen a sculptor make 
lips of clay smile as if he had called life 
there. 

Donald had taken her behind the 
scenes of a theatre, and she had watched 
the progress of a play from the wings, 
had gazed with critical eyes and a sense 
of illusions lost at the mechanism of 
what had so often enchanted her — 
exits, entrances, cues, and prompter’s 
book. 

And they had read much together — 


no 


A Circle in the Sand 


the exquisite prose of Huysmans and 
Mallarme, Kipling’s crushing phrases 
painting the arid glitter of India, 
“Tess,” bare-armed and fawn-eyed, 
loving tragically in a setting of clover 
and dawn mists, the fatalism of the 
‘‘ Rubaiyat,” and the wholesome cyni- 
cism of Thackeray. 

They shared all together as comrades 
and confidants. The boy in Donald 
and the piquant school-girl only masked 
in the woman, clasped hands and 
laughed. 


Chapter X 


O NE morning late in January Anne 
opened the sheets of the “ Citi- 
zen” and saw this item among the 
society notes: 

“ Among the passengers on the 
‘ Teutonic,’ which arrived in port last 
night, were Mrs. Lansius Ericsson and 
Miss Olga Ericsson. The latter is the 
latest of our young countrywomen to 
return to America with a London 
reputation for beauty.” 

Five days later Anne stepped from 
the grayness of the raw afternoon into 
Dr. Ericsson’s house. Her aunt had 
been in charge but a little while, yet 
the old house under her reign possessed 
what Anne felt it never could have had 
without her. A maid who was inof- 
fensive of voice and light of step took 
up her card, an open fire invited her. 


I I t 


II2 


A Circle in the Sand 


the aromatic odor of green things 
growing in a winter room filled the 
air, the light was toned to a pale yel- 
low, as if a sunset had happened pre- 
maturely. It was evident Mrs. Ericsson 
had a genius for selecting the salient 
requisites of an inviting home. 

“ Anne Garrick,” said a languid voice 
behind her, “ how d’you do ” 

She turned to face the aunt she but 
faintly remembered, a small, nervous 
woman, pale-haired, anxious-eyed, so 
restless she seemed like one half-paus- 
ing in a hurry before continuing the 
pursuit of something. 

She gave Anne her pale cheek to kiss, 
and exclaimed: 

“ How like your father! You’re a 
Garrick. You are not a Gerard.” 

The inflection was disapproving. 
Anne felt guilty for not looking like her 
mother. She began an apology for not 
having called before, but with amazing 
irrelevancy Mrs. Ericsson darted for 
the door. 

“ Olga is upstairs. Come up. We’ve 


A Circle in the Sand 113 

been waiting lunch for you for fifteen 
minutes. It’s all right, only with us 
every moment is of such importance. 
All the morning Olga has been trying 
on hats.” 

She turned at the top of the stairs, 
looking like a distracted sparrow. 

“ She won’t have a hat without a 
brim. Did you ever hear anything like 
it? Felice came all the way from Madi- 
son avenue with ten hats, all close fit- 
ting, and we begged her to try one. 
She wouldn’t, not if I went on my 
knees. Olga can be so set! Try and 
talk her over to a toque. It’s simply 
madness to insist on a brim when no- 
body is wearing one.” 

Again Anne felt like a culprit. The 
felt-and-feather creation on her head 
had a brim. It was useless to expect 
to find favor in her aunt’s eyes, since, 
looking like her father, she came wear- 
ing a big hat. 

“ Here’s Anne Garrick at last! ” And 
Mrs. Ericsson entered a big bay-win- 
dowed room as inviting as fluted Swiss 


A Circle in the Sand 


114 

curtains and pale green appointments 
could make it. 

A young woman was beside a win- 
dow, a manicure set spread out on a 
small table before her, and she was ex- 
amining a pink nail, much as a jeweller 
does the springs of a watch. 

“You dear thing! How are you?” 
she said, going to meet Anne, and they 
kissed each other. 

“ Let me look at you, Olga,” said 
Anne, turning her to the light. “ I’ve 
heard you are beautiful. Mr. Tinkle, 
our society editor, saw you at the opera 
last night and has talked about you all 
the morning.” 

Olga lifted her head lazily in a chal- 
lenging way and with a purring laugh. 

“Upon my word! Fancy ! ” she said, 
with an English accent, as Anne looked 
at her. “ What do you think ? Am I ? ” 

“ Yes, you are.” 

Few women would have welcomed 
criticism in that green setting and 
raw light. The two emphatic qualities 
of Olga’s beauty, etherealness and deli- 


A Circle in the Sand 


cacy, did not suffer. She was extraor- 
dinarily white. The skin on supple 
throat and quiet cheek was of almost 
silvery pallor. Moonlight seemed 
bathing her pale blond hair. Her 
greenish-gray e3^es were dreamy, the 
pupils large ; her upper lip very short, 
full, and coral pink. “ A moonlight 
maid,” the artists in Paris had called 
her. There was not a heavy note 
in her coloring. The blond brilliancy 
of some Swedish ancestor lived again 
in her, some “ flower of northern 
snows,” and with it the delicate 
American features of her mother. She 
was of average height, and, though 
slight, her body had a delicate robust- 
ness. She wore a white flannel robe 
loosely belted, and her hair hung in a 
plait to her waist. 

‘^You don’t mind my going to the 
table this way ? I am lazy, but we are 
en she said, strolling into the 

hall. ‘‘ Mamma hates me to do it, but I 
simply cannot dress for luncheon. Fm 
as stiff as a German cavalryman all the 


1 16 


A Circle in the Sand 


afternoon and night. I must have a 
little freedom.” 

In the dining-room they found Dr. 
Ericsson. He drew Anne to him and 
gave her a bear-like hug. 

“ Is this your debut as a family 
man ?” she asked. 

“ No, my second appearance. I’m 
getting used to the lime-light. I met 
David Temple coming up town last 
night and prevailed on him to dine 
with us.” 

What a charming man he is ! ” ex- 
claimed Mrs. Ericsson, and from the 
commencement of the meal, with short 
intervals of rest, Anne was put through 
a catechism by her aunt about David 
Temple. Her tongue played between 
her lips restlessly, while David’s posi- 
tion, money, character, and possible at- 
tachments were inquired after minutely 
and with an appraiser’s air. When the 
cross-examination was finished, Anne 
had a feeling that David had been tick- 
eted and put away with other ticketed 
matrimonial possibilities. 


A Circle in the Sand 


117 

The pauses in this research were 
filled in by a recital of Olga’s past and 
coming triumphs, what she must and 
must not do, who was worth her know- 
ing and who was not. 

Anne was glad to get back to the 
green and white room, the door closed, 
and only Olga there, looking at her 
with amused eyes. 

Look here, Anne, isn’t she har- 
rowing? Do you wonder how I stand 
it? There ought to be a law for the 
suppression of uncongenial relations. 
Mamma is really impossible.” 

She flung herself into a rocker and 
took one foot into the embrace of her 
hand. Suddenly she burst out laugh- 
ing. 

Anne Garrick, you’ve a very ex- 
pressive face! You don’t envy me, 
although I’m a beauty and the only 
daughter of an adoring mother! ” 

She took a thin cigarette from a sil- 
ver box on the table. 

Have one? You don’t smoke? 
You don’t know what a comfort it is.” 


ii8 A Circle in the Sand 

But doesn’t your mother object?” 
asked Anne, making herself comfort- 
able among a heap of cushions. 

Of course. What doesn’t she object 
to ? She doesn’t want me to eat potatoes 
lest they make me fat, nor to take cold 
baths, because they make me blue. 
She rubs my nose hard every night, 
because one little pink vein — see it? — 
shows. She almost cries when I do 
my hair high, and takes to her bed if I 
insist on more than one cup of coffee. 
I’m not allowed to spend a penny as 
I please, nor to have an original idea 
about a gown or hat. In fact, I’m my 
mother’s stock in hand, which she is 
alwa 3 '’s polishing, preserving, eying. 
It’s very trying. Shall I tell you how 
I manage to endure this continual cen- 
sorship mixed with servile worship — 
for mamma does adore me. A pioneer 
never regarded a finished cabin, every 
stick of which had been laid by his own 
hands, with more satisfaction than she 
does me. She does not seem to give 
papa any share in my being at all.” 


A Circle in the Sand 


119 

I think I know what your tactics 
are,” said Anne, scrutinizing her good- 
humoredly. You’re very soft and 
white. You seem to move in an atmos- 
phere of amiability, but I have not for- 
gotten your early propensity for sticking 
pins nor the educated way your little 
nails could scratch. You could scratch 
still, Olga, if that were necessary, but 
you have found a surer means of gain- 
ing your way.” 

You’ve hit it. What’s the use of 
continual dispute ? Why worry this one 
little life out of yourself? You want 
your own way — take it. Be attentive to 
all the rules laid down for your con- 
duct, then ignore them and smile. 
When you’re found out and reproaches 
are showered on you, think of some- 
thing else or go to sleep.” 

She lighted another cigarette with a 
ruminative expression and clasped her 
hands behind her head. The look in her 
eyes was like that of a mild baby trying 
to diagnose a sunbeam. 

Really, you know, if mamma would 


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A Circle in the Sand 


only rest her tired little body and head 
and leave me to myself she’d be very 
wise. She has nothing to fear from me. 
I know what’s expected of me. We’re 
poor; worse, we’re in debt. She lives 
in perpetual dread of my marrying a 
poor man. Could anything be more ab- 
surd? Nothing in the world will ever 
be as dear to me as my personal com- 
fort. For a girl to go into business life 
as you have done, making her own 
way, working, struggling, is beyond 
my understanding. Some one must al- 
waj'S support me, Anne, and support 
me well.” 

“ I wonder you came back to America 
without a title, or at least a fortune.” 

“ I could have married money several 
times, and a lot of it,” said Olga, “ but 
unfortunately I distinctly disliked the 
men. It wouldn’t do to marry a man 
you couldn’t for the life of you be civil 
to. Would it?” 

“ Oh, I don’t know ! Aren’t you over- 
sensitive?” 

The laughter in Anne’s tone did not 


A Circle in the Sand 


I2I 


disturb Olga. She pursed out her lips 
and nodded. 

“ I almost caught a title too. This is 
the way I missed it : for one thing, 
mamma’s eagerness frightened him. 
I’m sure he could see her shake as soon 
as he appeared. I’m sure he saw her 
nudge me. But that wouldn’t have seri- 
ously mattered if he hadn’t found me 
out.” 

Her lips curled in a one-sided smile. 

“ I can laugh now, but really it was 
provoking at the time. Val — dear thing 
he was ! — hated the least touch of un- 
conventionality in a woman, and smok- 
ing he considered only a little better 
than swearing. By the way, I’m telling 
you the truth about myself, Anne. It’s 
such a relief to tell it. I never do ex- 
cept to relatives. With men it’s impos- 
sible not to pose; they expect so much. 
Well, my dear, I posed for Val for six 
long, weary months. I played the little 
lamb, always with a bit of needlework, 
practising the Madonna gaze, taking 
only one glass of champagne at dinners 


122 


A Circle in the Sand 


and declining cigarettes with a shy, re- 
proachful glance. He used to tell me 
I was his ideal, that it seemed profane 
to love me, that nature knew what she 
was about when she fashioned me like 
an angel, etc. One day he walked into 
Morley’s where I was having my por- 
trait done, and found me with Mrs. 
Sutton Vane, a little monkey of a 
woman with a fast manner, and whom 
he particularly detested. We had a bet 
on as to which could blow the roundest 
rings of smoke. I, his Madonna, his 
angel, his snow-flower, won, while he, 
unseen by me, watched. Sudden bus- 
iness called him away next day, busi- 
ness so absorbing he never came back. 
Mamma has sat up. nights with her 
finger to her forehead wondering why. 
I am all blank amazement when the 
subject is broached. And here endeth 
the romance of Lord Valentine Dun- 
wearthy. It went up in smoke.” 

“ Y ou weren’t a bit in love with him ? ” 

“In love.? No. I never loved any- 
thing but this. Listen ! ” 


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123 


She went to the mirror and looked 
into it steadily for a moment, then 
turned to Anne, her whole expression 
changed. The laziness of glance van- 
ished. She flung up her head and 
laughed joyously. To Anne’s amaze- 
ment the lines from The Merchant 
of Venice ” where Portia decides to 
masquerade as a man, left her lips at 
first tenderly, with half-hidden laugh- 
ter, as a school-girl confides a secret, 
then with assurance, a pretty swagger, 
delighted anticipation. 

Anne listened in wonder. The room 
seemed to fade, the clatter from the 
street became unreal, and it was not 
Olga who stood before her. It was 
Portia glittering in queenliness and 
coquetry, the perfume of an Italian 
garden coming in with the sunset, a 
minstrel lounging near her, swords 
distantly clanking as waiting gallants 
moved. Her voice had power and 
sweetness. Her awakened face sparkled 
changefully. She seemed possessed of 
a soul with wings struggling to be free. 


124 


A Circle in the Sand 


When the last word was spoken she 
sank down by Anne’s side and seized 
her hand. 

“You liked it? I see you did.” 

“ Oh, where have you had the 
chance ” — 

“ Didn’t you know they went wild in 
London society over my Constance in 
‘ The Love Chase ’ ? I played it at 
a dozen houses for various charities. 
Oh, the stage ! That would make pov- 
erty endurable. The life calls me, 
Anne. I know its disadvantages, — no 
one better, — but it’s a rare lot when 
you feel your fitness for it. I’ll never 
do more than dabble with it for amuse- 
ment, but if I could — if I’d been free 
to do as I pleased — the world would 
have heard of me. Here’s mamma,” 
she broke off, the light leaving her 
face. “ She’s coming with hot milk to 
give me a face-bath. By the way, she 
loathes acting, even my amateur work, 
but I’ve already made arrangements 
with Mrs. Oswald Morse to do Kate 
Hardcastle at Tuxedo for the Work- 


A Circle in the Sand 


125 


ing Girls’ Library Fund. She’d have 
palpitation of the heart if she knew it. 
I’ll tell her the day before.” 

Anne left her in her mother’s hands, 
over a basin of steaming milk. The 
meeting had left a unique and emphatic 
impression. 

‘‘ A woman with a thistledown con- 
science, a woman to pick the plums 
from life with soft, business-like fingers 
and an indifferent air, five feet five of 
radiant selfishness, — that’s my cousin 
Olga,” she thought as she went down 
the street; “but I like her.” 


Chapter XI 


O LGA appeared as Kate Hardcastle 
at Tuxedo, and the town, or that 
part of it circling in carefully barred 
orbit, talked of her. The papers seized 
on her as something new, and printed 
pictures of her as a beauty, libellous 
things in which she looked dropsical 
or murderous or only harmlessly mad. 
Mrs. Ericsson kept the reporters well 
informed, fumed over the newspaper 
abortions of her darling, went with her 
everywhere, to noon breakfasts, to 
dances ending at dawn, and in asides 
took pills to stay her heart. 

Every one knew that Smedle}^ Joyce, 
who had met Olga in London, had 
been her sponsor in society. In his 
sister’s box at the opera she had made 
her first appearance in New York. 
He had managed invitations for her, 

126 


A Circle in the Sand 


127 


given a luncheon in her honor, and 
in his rooms on Fifth avenue, at a tea 
where a rajah in a marvellous turban 
winked his brilliant eyes, David Temple 
saw her again. 

There are some men one cannot dis- 
associate from the names upon their 
visiting cards. Smedley Joyce was 
one of these. Smedley, even to his 
intimates, seemed an impertinence, and 
Mr. Joyce commonplace. He was his 
full name, from the glittering apex of 
his bald crown to the toe of his equally 
glittering boot. If he could, he would 
have been lighter, younger, and with 
the lungs of a football half-back, but 
just as he was people deferred to him. 
Hopelessly devoted to a single life, his 
cult, however, was feminine beauty, 
and the woman he admired became 
the fashion. The personality of Smed- 
ley Joyce pervaded New York. He 
was a permanent fad; his vogue was 
unquestioned, like the Thanksgiving 
turkey and the horse-show. 

In the fragrance and dusk of his 


128 


A Circle in the Sand 


beautiful rooms he seized David’s hand 
in greeting and gave it the fashionable 
upward jerk. 

Ah, you did get up to see us, you 
dreadfully busy man! You’d make us 
forget you if that were possible.” And 
David found himself passed on to make 
room for the next comer. 

He declined tea from the matrons 
receiving, and kept near the door. He 
had come in only for a few moments to 
see the rajah and talk with him. As he 
stood there, his big shoulders and keen 
face showing clearly above those sur- 
rounding him, he looked across the 
whispering, constantly changing crowd 
for the famous Hindoo. 

Close by the big, yawning leaves of 
palms screening the zither-players he 
saw him. The lean brown profile with 
the huge crimson turban above was 
bending over some one. It was Olga. 
When the crowd parted David saw her 
plainly. 

She was on a low seat beside a pink 
lamp, her mother, now chatting at a 


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129 


little distance, having early seen the 
advantage of the rosy light. She was 
in velvet and furs, her lips under a deli- 
cate veil lazily smiling. A hat with a 
brim, and a big one, shadowed her eyes 
and gave them deeper mystery. Her 
pose was regal, gentle. The upward 
glances given to the rajah were lazy, 
provoking. Her delicate lips were 
humid with a childish sensuousness. 

No wonder David and a dozen other 
men who watched her came to the same 
decision — she was beautiful, loving, 
gentle, true. She seemed the sort of 
woman men so frequently choose as a 
wife and never as a comrade: a help- 
less, fascinating, fastidious creature, 
whose eyes express the words: Tell 
me, dear, just what to do. You know 
so much better than I;” not a woman 
of original opinions on anything under 
the sun; as conventional in thought as 
in the way she wore her hair; not tailor- 
made, independent, or athletic; one 
whose gowns were always marvels to 
men’s eyes, fragrant mysteries of lace 


130 A Circle in the Sand 

and ribbons; a woman to love ease and 
cushions and never remember an ad- 
dress; to coo to a baby, crave needle- 
work, and dabble in charity, — alto- 
gether a seductive contrast to the restless 
spirit of a man’s business life. 

Her physical radiance came upon 
David for the second time with the 
power of a summons. He had fre- 
quently thought of her since the pre- 
vious meeting. No one who once saw 
Olga ever quite forgot her. Side by 
side with the fancy of what Elaine 
might have been, her lovely face, rare 
in type, took its place. 

He made his way to her and she 
gave him her hand, sinking back in a 
lazy attitude. The rajah was forgotten 
by him, and they talked of many things, 
of trifles mostly, but Olga had a way of 
making light talk entrancing. Her 
speech was pretty, and her laziness 
wrapped a listener with a sense of 
magnetic quiet. 

Growing more serious, she questioned 
David about the ‘‘ Citizen,” of Anne’s 


A Circle in the Sand 


131 

position in the office, and spoke in an 
attractively feminine way of the mys- 
tery attending the making of a news- 
paper. 

“How can Anne do it?” she said, 
smoothing her muff, her trustful eyes 
lifted to his. “ Oh, I suppose Fm 
stupid, helpless, but I shouldn’t like 
such a life of tension and rush; always 
among the wheels — that’s how it seems 
to me. Fm afraid Fd be like a silly 
butterfly caught in a machine.” 

“ Anne’s desires are different from 
yours,” said David, and the perfume 
of the violets under her chin lightened 
his heart as if the shade of spring had 
passed him. He looked at her almost 
tenderly. “ Y ours are better.” 

“Think so?” 

“ Better for a woman,” he said softly. 
“ I think so, but perhaps Fm intolerant; 
perhaps Fm old-fashioned. I admire 
Anne, and I like her more than I can 
say. I like many women who hold 
her ambitious views, but they seem to 
me to gain brilliancy and self-reliance 


132 


A Circle in the Sand 


at the sacrifice of a quality that is beau- 
tiful and indefinable, like a mist or a 
perfume.” 

“ And you don’t despise a woman 
who likes needlework?” asked Olga, as 
if confessing to one of her pet diver- 
sions; “who doesn’t belong to a 
woman’s club; who cries over a novel, 
and maybe not one of the best ? ” 

“God forbid!” said David vehe- 
mently. “ Soon she’ll be found only 
among obsolete classifications. I, for 
one, intend to extol her before she 
quite disappears.” 

“ Dear me ! ” she said, with low 
laughter. “ I almost feel the pin through 
me now, as I repose in a glass case 
labelled in black and white, ‘ Rare speci- 
men of woman belonging to the remote 
era, when she did nothing but try to be 
happy and was glad of it.’” 

She leaned toward David as she 
spoke, and some one brushing past her 
to greet a friend forced her closer, so 
for a second her shoulder pressed his, 
her lips were an inch away, her warm. 


A Circle in the Sand 


133 


startled breath swept his throat. It was 
but a second’s nearness, yet his heart 
gave a throb of almost savage joy. In 
a flash her beauty became a temptation, 
a passionate happiness filled him, a 
breeze seemed to sweep along his nerves, 
and he knew why an unexplained joy 
had come to him with the first sight of 
this woman’s face. 

With her arrival his senses had strug- 
gled to awaken as at a call. Now there 
was no resisting the feeling. It was a 
quick, complete fascination. Conscious 
of it, he grew silent and looked at Olga 
with new vision. 

He felt how apart from all others is 
the moment when a man first faces the 
question placed before him by his own 
consciousness, “ Is this the woman I 
am to love ? ” It may be he awakens 
to the truth slowly after she has passed 
through the changes from stranger to 
nearest friend. Or one look into an 
unfamiliar face may blur all save the 
pursuing newness of that one truth. 
The moment is the same — over-sweet. 


134 


A Circle in the Sand 


painful, intimately dear, never to be for- 
gotten. 

There was no chance for further talk 
between them. Smedley Joyce bore 
down on Olga with a monocled stranger 
in tow. A moment afterward a famous 
singer was announced. Every one 
knew it was Smedley Joyce’s law that 
the music for which he paid so much 
should be respected, and silence save 
for an occasional whisper and rustle 
settled upon the crowd as the singer 
appeared. 

She was pale, with heavy-lidded, sad 
e3^es. A white gown draped her thin 
form. Roses flamed in her girdle. 
Her contralto voice was strange, un- 
earthly, as she sang in a whisper of the 
heart-wrung damozel who watched 
from Heaven. She sang of love with 
death closely following. Her fingers 
moved slowly; she seemed talking to 
the kej's: 

“ ‘ I wish that he were come to me — 

For he will come,’ she said. 

‘ Have I not prayed in Heaven ? On earth, 


A Circle in the Sand 


135 


Lord, Lord, has he not prayed? 

Are not two prayers a perfect strength. 

And shall I be afraid ? 

“ ‘ There will I ask of Christ the Lord 
This much for him and me — 

Only to live as once on earth. 

With love ; only to be. 

As then awhile, forever now 
Together, I and he.’ ” 

Music had never moved David Tem- 
ple like that strange song. It saddened 
his heart, while his brain was ravished 
with a sense of its beauty. It gave to 
the new passion thrilling him an ideal- 
ity which it did not possess. 

He looked at Olga, hoping for one 
glance, but she was sitting with her 
head turned away, her eyes on the 
singer, waiting for the next song. David 
wanted to hear no more. He wished 
to keep the memory of that cry of 
human need, holding an echo as if 
caught in the far spaces of Heaven, — 
to knit it with the revelation of the hour. 

Outside he found the dusk and the icy 
air. There was a medley of cold colors 
in the sky, the solemn night was near, 


136 A Circle in the Sand 


the avenue veiled in gray. He hurried 
on, feeling a new happiness tempered 
by the pain of uncertainty. Questions 
troubled him. Was this really love? 
Was his hand upon the string from 
which so many marvellous strains and 
pitiful discords had been struck? 

He had always calmly and remotely 
contemplated the rounding of his life 
with a great love, but something in him 
had heretofore disdained sentiment. At 
its best it had seemed a majestic weak- 
ness, commonly only a ridiculous thing. 
He had known perfect friendship, but 
the love he had seen make fools of the 
wise, turn the flow of a life completely 
out of its course, had seemed as removed 
from him as insanity — until to-night. 

He still felt the touch of Olga’s body, 
the violet’s perfume no sweeter than 
her breath. 

“ Only to live as once on earth, 

With love • • • ” 

“ As once on earth ! ” There was rapt- 
urous memory of a joy he had never 


A Circle in the Sand 


137 


known in those words. Their burden 
of passionate melody went with him 
like the voice of conscience. He saw 
only Olga’s inviting eyes. 


Chapter XII 


D avid loitered over his after-din- 
ner coffee. Though expected at 
the office, a disinclination to enter the 
world of prose and machinery mastered 
him. He was in a relaxed and fanciful 
mood. He sat by the club window, 
conscious of the shadows flitting under 
the lamps, listening to the street sounds. 
He talked with those about him on 
social happenings and politics, but al- 
ways, no matter what was said, felt a 
fine disregard of it all, because the 
glamour of the afternoon was with him 
still and his deeper thought was of 
that alone. 

“ Pd love to hear Anne sing a ballad 
to-night,” he thought, as he went down 
the steps, a cigar between his lips. “ I 
wonder if she’s at home. She can’t be 
off with Donald anywhere, for he wasn’t 
138 


A Circle in the Sand 


139 


in town to-day. I’ll see if she’s in, at 
any rate. The walk down the lower 
part of the avenue and across Washing- 
ton square will be glorious on a night 
like this.” 

David was in a mood when a man is 
his own historian, and reads the facts of 
a life with pleasure or a sense of failure 
according to the truth in that intimate, 
unpublished record. He saw none of 
the passers-by, was only half conscious 
of the frost and the gas-lit streets. He 
was regarding his years from boyhood, 
and measuring the completeness of his 
present by his use of opportunities. 

It was a comfortable revery. He 
had nothing to regret. The death of his 
father had been his only grief, soon 
lived down in the fulness of ambition 
and independent wealth. No shadow 
lurked in his past. He had experi- 
mented with “ the world, the flesh, and 
the devil,” but had formed no ignoble 
ties. He had splendid health, invinci- 
ble will, limitless desire for success in 
whatever he touched, clean years be- 


140 


A Circle in the Sand 


hind him, a shadowless future. Sup- 
pose he married? A picture rose be- 
fore him as inviting in its way as the 
others of the group. Why not? A 
woman, gentle, beautiful, sympathetic, 
reflecting him, sharing his life, children 
in his home, their future to be laid and 
finished when his own life was practi- 
cally over. 

His heart glowed; a spirit singing of 
triumph went with him. 

Very soon — for he walked quickly — 
he had crossed the almost empty square 
to the street where Anne lived. Her 
sympathy meant much to him since he 
wished urgently for her to-night, as if 
she would divine the power of the new 
dream possessing him and all his secret 
thoughts. He might lead her on to talk 
to him about Olga. 

As he went toward the house his eyes 
were fastened on her windows. He was 
not aware that a man had come down 
the garden path, and having opened 
the gate stood watching him. But 
when his eyes became accustomed to 


A Circle in the Sand 


141 

the shadow he saw Donald’s face under 
the low-drawn hat. It was almost un- 
familiar, haggard, of a sick pallor, the 
old curse with a new shame upon it. 

David looked at him in silence. The 
leniency of secret brotherhood between 
them had lately influenced his inward 
attitude toward Donald, and there was 
an elder brother’s scrutiny and im- 
patience in the look he fixed upon 
him. 

When I sent for you this morning, 
Donald, I heard you hadn’t been home 
for three days,” he said gravely. “ I 
thought you’d gone to the lightship to 
make the pictures for Arnold’s story, 
though next week would have done for 
that. Did you go } ” 

Donald drew back into the path, the 
light of the street-lamp upon him. He 
seemed to age. He lifted his hands 
and let them fall heavily. 

“ No, I didn’t. I meant to go. I — 
Well, you see how it’s been with me,” 
he said bluntly. 

You’ve been drinking again.” 


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A Circle in the Sand 


“ You’ve hit it. Going at the devil’s 
pace.” 

It was the apathetic admission of one 
vanquished. 

David had always thought of him 
with impatience as one deliberately bad, 
seeking the congenial though it meant 
wreckage, and he had mentally washed 
his hands of himlongago. Just because 
he was a brother and dependent he had 
retained him on the “ Citizen ” despite 
his lapses, paying him for what work he 
handed in, never questioning him, let- 
ting him entirely alone. He had always 
viewed two things as hopeless — a 
woman with a hobby, a man with a 
vice. There was no lasting virtue in 
reformation. He had seen so many 
failures, even when men and women 
hungered for the good they were not 
strong enough to grasp. And now 
Donald — the old story! It was a pity. 
The years behind him were his future 
temptation. There is shock in a fall, 
but a step to familiar conditions is easy 
enough. 


A Circle in the Sand 


H3 


He fingered his cigar uneasily, almost 
at a loss for words. 

“ Fm sorry you were weak, Donald,” 
and the words, despite his effort, had a 
flat, stereotyped ring, but you mustn’t 
fancy it’s hopeless. You must just be- 
gin the battle over again.” 

Donald’s eyes fell, a faint smile played 
over his face. 

“ So she said,” and he looked up 
shrinkingly at Anne’s window. “ She 
can’t save me ; no one can except 
myself. I must save myself. That’s 
what she said when she sent me 
away to-night — I must save myself. I 
tried before — I was so sure — so sure 
— so happy. But when temptation got 
to a climax it was like a paper house 
trying to get the better of a flame. You 
wouldn’t bet on the paper house, would 
you?” he said sharply. 

“ Get away from the flame.” 

“ Suppose you carry it with you night 
and day, night and day, here, here, 
here ? ” he called out, his hand tight 
upon his breast. 


144 


A Circle in the Sand 


His expression changed to stolid 
gloom, and he looked past David. 

“ Only for her I’d give it all up and 
go to the devil without a regret. I 
didn’t mind so much before I knew her. 
Now when I know what a poor thing I 
am, why can’t I forget that she cares 
what happens to me, go away, quench 
this damnable torture by satisfying it — 
and die, the sooner the better? Why 
can’t I do it?” and his voice rose and 
quivered, but sank again to a whisper. 
“ I can’t. I can’t. No one else cares a 
hang what becomes of me, but as long 
as she cares I’ve got to try in spite of 
myself. I’ve got to try, and suffer, and 
deserve a little her belief in me.” 

He laid his arm along the icy bars 
and let his head fall upon it. David 
thought of his late self-congratulation, 
the contented review of his life, and the 
sight of this tormented soul was terrible. 

‘‘ Look here, Donald, this is all non- 
sense. You mustn’t take this lapse 
so seriously. You must forget it and 
start anew,” and he pulled at the 


A Circle in the Sand 


bent shoulder, his tone encouraging. 
“ That’s what you must do. And you 
mustn’t think no one cares but Anne,” 
he added softly, his hand tightening 
where it lay. care very much.” 

“ You?” 

Donald lifted his head and looked 
steadily at David. 

“ Yes, 1. Don’t forget that. No one 
was more glad than I when you started 
in to make something of yourself. I 
pity you now. By and by I want to be 
proud of you. Don’t say you have no 
friend but Anne Garrick. I hope you’ll 
deserve her good opinion. But re- 
member I count on you, too. I will do 
anything in the world to help you. 
Don’t you believe it?” 

He held out his hand. Donald 
looked at it, but did not stir. There 
was almost irresistible magnetism in 
David’s kindling eyes, and Donald had 
always stealthily loved him. But he 
could not touch the proffered hand, 
much as he longed to. It would be 
renouncing too sweet a revenge. 


146 A Circle in the Sand 


“ Won’t you take my hand? ” 

“No,” he said insolently. “What 
have you ever been to me that I should 
flatter this poetic impulse of yours — 
this impulse now — that means noth- 
ing ? ” 

Chagrin and uneasiness seized David 
his hand fell. 

“ I’m sincere. What do you mean?” 

“You care what becomes of me? 
You care for my contemptible exist- 
ence? You?” 

He stood erect, buttoning his coat 
tightly across his breast, his eyes brill- 
iant and dry. 

“You seem sceptical,” and David’s 
tone was uncertain in a way most un- 
usual for him. “Believe it or not, I’m 
ready to help you now or at any time.” 

“ Oh, are you ? ” said Donald slowly, 
nodding his head. “Your generosity 
comes too late. This is a strange place 
to have this matter out between us. I 
never supposed I’d speak of myself to 
you, but I’m not myself to-night. You, 
too, seem to have undergone a wonder- 


A Circle in the Sand 


147 


ful change. The words you speak are 
unfamiliar. Why didn’t you say years 
ago what you’ve said to-night.^ Did 
you ever think of the difference between 
us — what love and care can make of a 
boy, what scorn and intolerance can 
make of him ? There were nights when 
I thought I’d go mad from sheer loneli- 
ness, and you, full of your schemes and 
pleasures, never gave me a thought. 
My heart starved for sympathy, but I 
couldn’t get near you. Don’t let me 
think of those days before I had learned 
to say, ‘ I don’t care,’ and when you 
could have helped me. Don’t let me 
think of them.” 

He brushed past David and pulled 
open the gate. 

“Wait a minute, Donald. What you 
say requires an answer. Listen to me. 
You forget circumstances made it 
almost impossible for us to be friends. 
My father’s unhappiness with your 
mother, his dislike of you — cruelly un- 
just, I admit ” — 

“ I was his sin.” And a sneer made 


148 A Circle in the Sand 


Donald ugly for a moment. “ His eyes 
couldn’t bear to light on me. The sight 
of me turned him sick, and made him 
nose for comfort among the Psalms 
telling of King David’s repentance. I 
was his materialized sin, and he 
scourged me. You know that.” 

“Yes; but there, don’t let us go into 
that miserable business! I’m only try- 
ing to defend myself. The injustice of 
those days wasn’t my fault.” 

“ And after John Temple died, was 
there any difference? You gave me 
work, but I was nothing to you. For 
eight years I’ve been busy at slow homi- 
cide, strangling whatever was good in 
me. You said nothing. You didn’t tell 
me then to brace up and make some- 
thing of myself. Now” — and the 
words were a cry of anguish — “I 
seem to have a malformed soul unfit 
for struggle. It’s like entering a cripple 
against a giant. Once what wouldn’t I 
have given to have felt you really cared ! 
Think what it would have been to me! 
I was without a friend, as ready for evil 


A Circle in the Sand 


149 


as a laid powder-trail is for a match. 
If you’d spoken then as you did to- 
night ” — he paused, looking away from 
David. ‘‘You didn’t. You offer your 
encouraging words now. They’re use- 
less, and I refuse them.” 

He closed the gate sharply, and 
David watched him down the street. 
There was a sick sense of guilt at his 
heart. For the first time he faced the 
truth. He saw himself wrapped in 
egotism, living for personal success, 
never thinking of the want in Donald’s 
life. He had always known he was cold, 
practical, stern, apt to view the failures 
of life with impatience, the road to his 
heart a narrow one beset by roughnesses; 
but to realize he had been cruel too, 
and that the remorseful soul he had 
faced to-night was in some degree a 
result of his self-absorption, was a new 
and hateful fact. Even this present con- 
sideration for Donald had been selfish. 
His own unqualified content had made 
him kind, as an over-full glass must 
waste some of its wine. 


150 A Circle in the Sand 


On leaving the club he had looked 
forward to a cosey hour with Anne, 
when he might have led her to talk 
about her cousin; but he had been 
roused to something sterner, to face a 
delayed duty, and when he did anything 
he did it well. 

Anne was writing when he went into 
the sitting-room. 

“ I met Donald at the gate,” were his 
first words, and he noticed a look of 
anxiety pass over her face. 

“Were you speaking to him?” 

“ Y es, we had it out. Curious, wasn’t 
it, after all these years to know for the 
first time the real Donald at your gar- 
den gate ? ” 

“ Don’t be hard on him,” she said 
clearly, standing up. 

An expression of defiance in her eyes 
added to his self-reproach. He looked 
at her thoughtfully. 

“ I must have seemed a brute to you. 
Sit down by me here, Anne, and help 
me a little. I’ve always been so obedi- 
ent to my conscience that it has never 


A Circle in the Sand 


— 

been a nuisance. Well, to-night it 
stings me like a fretful woman, and I 
must silence it,” he said bitterly. “ I’m 
going to do something for Donald. I’ve 
a scheme I think would save him. I’m 
goiner to help him with all mv heart.” 

‘‘You will?” 

“ With all my heart.” 

“ Oh, yes ! ” she said, seizing David’s 
hand, her love for him rushing over 
her. “ He’s done all he could to ruin 
his life, but you’ll help him to value it 
now. You’re so good ! ” 


Chapter XIII 


M rs. ERICSSON fluttered into the 
green and white room and stood 
before Olga. She looked like a quiver- 
ing interrogation-mark. 

“ Why won’t you go to see Irving 
with the Kents? The invitation has 
come at the last moment, but you know 
they got the box unexpectedly, so you 
needn’t fancy you’ve been asked just 
to fill in.” 

She surveyed Olga with pleading 
eyes and irritated air. Never had she 
seemed so purposely provoking as now, 
lying before the window in a steamer 
chair, calm, attentive, and polite. 

“I’m not going, dear,” said Olga, 
settling herself at an angle which 
brought added comfort and turning the 
fashion magazine she had been reading 
face downward on her knee, “ because 
152 


A Circle in the Sand 


153 


Pm lazy, because this dry cold makes 
my nose an ugly magenta” — 

^^You have furs” — 

Because I hate the theatre in the 
daytime, am sick to death of Mrs. Kent 
and her knobby-headed son” — 

‘‘ Olga, you’ll simply drive me dis- 
tracted by your indifference.” 

And because David Temple is com- 
ing at five o’clock.” 

Oh,” with a comprehensive gasp, 
is he ? ” 

I asked him in last night.” 

Mrs. Ericsson dropped into a chair 
and folded her hands in her lap. 

Olga,” she said seriously, for the 
past month, ever since Smedley Joyce’s 
tea, he has been following you about. 
You’ve encouraged him, whether for 
fun, as you call it, or not I don’t know. 
But people say David Temple is not a 
marrying man and to have him loom up 
like your shadow wherever you go will 
hurt your chances. It certainly will.” 

Think so?” and Olga drew a loose 
strand of hair through her fingers. 


154 A Circle in the Sand 


“ I know it. You’re very perverse. 
There’s Bob Deschalles making a fool of 
himself over you, a man with one of 
the largest fortunes ” — 

“ And a fool. I’m not exacting when 
millions are appended, but I draw the 
line at him. Don’t talk of him any 
more.” 

She looked fully at her mother with 
open criticism. 

“ How little you understand me. If 
you knew anything of character, you’d 
have seen long ago I must be proud of 
the man I marry. I need not care a pin 
for him, but because of brains, family 
or personality with wealth, I must re- 
gard him as a prize and have other 
women envy me. D’ye see.^ Now 
who’d envy me Bob Deschalles — who 
under heaven ? ” 

She gave a conclusive shrug and re- 
turned to the magazine. Her mother 
looked at her and sighed impatiently. 

“Well, about David Temple?” she 
said sharply. 

“ And what about him ? He’s coming 


A Circle in the Sand 


15s 


at five. I’m going to pour tea for him, 
which he’ll pretend to drink. I’ll see 
he thinks me beautiful, which I am, as 
well as a great many other things which 
I’m not.” 

“You know well enough what I 
mean, Olga. You can be so provoking. 
Why don’t you answer me ? ” 

“ You haven’t asked me anything.” 

“ Does he mean anything ? ” she asked 
angrily. 

“Yes, he means everything.” 

“Has he said anything.?” And a 
look of rapacity made Mrs. Ericsson’s 
eyes gleam. 

“ Not exactly.” 

“ Then how can you tell? You only 
think so. You’ve thought so before and 
been mistaken.” 

“ I feel it.” 

“ And you’d marr}’ him ? ” 

“Why not? I’ve used my eyes to 
good advantage, mamma, though I 
haven’t seemed to see much. Women 
have stopped running after David Tem- 
ple because he’s been given up as 


156 A Circle in the Sand 


hopeless. Suppose I win him? If any 
have doubted my power they’ll doubt 
no more. Besides, he inspires a deli- 
cious sense of fear in me. As for what 
he is,” — and she extended her hands, 
— “ show me anything better. He’s 
rich. The position he holds at the head 
of the ‘ Citizen,’ representing its brains 
and money, is the nearest thing to a 
title to be had in this country. More 
than this, he’s ambitious, and he’ll keep 
advancing. He may go into politics, be 
the President — who knows ? — and I’ll 
make things hum at the White House.” 
She rose and in passing her mother 
drew her hand teasingly down her small, 
worried face, flattening the nose. “ How 
would you look, dear, between two 
foreign diplomats at a state dinner? 
Just like a pussy-cat,” she laughed 
merrily. “ And how would it like to 
look like a pussy-cat?” 

“ Don’t be childish, Olga.” Mrs. 
Ericsson rearranged her nose and stood 
up testily. “You’ve evidently made up 
your mind. Well, I’ll be glad when 


A Circle in the Sand 


157 


it’s settled and the strain of keeping up 
appearances is over.” 

“ If you only wouldn’t worry,” said 
Olga placidly. 

“ Not worry? ” flashed Mrs. Ericsson 
from the doorway. “ And where would 
you be and how would things be with 
you to-day if I didn’t worry to find some 
way of making ends meet? I’ll say 
‘ Thank God ’ when it’s ended.” 

‘‘ And I’ll say ‘ Amen,’ ” said Olga, 
with more emphasis than was usual 
with her. 


Chapter XIV 



T eight o’clock it was snowing 


i \ wildly. The city was like the 
wraith of what it had been in the morn- 
ing hours. Foot-marks were wiped out 
as soon as made, and the whirl of the 
storm filled the town with excitement. 

The bell in David Temple’s office 
was rung sharply. 

“I didn’t know Mr. Temple’d come 
back,” said Pete in dismay, sliding the 
latest dime novel under a box. 

While fastening her veil Anne 
listened for David’s voice. His steady, 
unaccented tones came clearly to her. 
He had returned and entered his pri- 
vate office without passing through the 
editorial rooms. A moment later he 
came in. 

“I thought you’d be gone,” he said, 
pausing beside her. His eyes were 


A Circle in the Sand 


159 


unusually bright, a cool color from the 
storm was on his cheeks. “ I’m going 
out again in a moment and will go up 
town with you. I just came down to 
see Farley,” and he crossed to the 
night editor’s desk. 

Ten minutes later they were on the 
streets together. The snow stung their 
faces, settled like a mantle over them, 
and in capricious skeins half hid the 
blinking eyes of the crowd they passed 
through. Shivering newsboys blew on 
their fingers, crouching under the stairs 
of the elevated road, and white-capped 
tamale men, presiding over their copper 
cans like magicians over a flame, sent 
their rolling cry from the shelter of 
doorways. 

The trains were crowded at that 
hour. It was necessary for Anne to 
take a seat far from where David stood, 
and she could only see his big shoulders 
beyond an intervening dozen. By the 
time her gate came in sight after a 
difficult walk, the storm had reached 
crescendo and they were breathless. 


i6o 


A Circle in the Sand 


“ Come up to the fire for a moment,” 
said Anne. 

“ But you haven’t dined ? ” 

“ Hours ago. It’s almost nine. Come 
in. I’ve seen nothing of you for a 
week.” 

“Just for a moment, then, if I may. 
Besides, I want to speak to you of 
Donald.” 

And it was of Donald they talked, 
yet something in David’s tone thrilled 
and bewildered Anne. He had been 
successful in his interview with Donald 
Sefain, had flung the first plank across 
the chasm between them. But content 
for that did not explain the light in his 
face, the passionate air in his whole 
presence. He seemed revelling in un- 
expressed exultation. With a foolish 
stirring of the heart Anne was con- 
scious of it, and waited. 

As he talked he leaned back with 
eyes half closed. The pose forcibly re- 
called the first day she saw him, when 
he had tried to prevent her becom- 
ing a newspaper woman, — the flung- 


A Circle in the Sand i6i 

back shoulder and half-closed eye, the 
loosened lock of hair clinging to the 
forehead and giving a boyish touch to 
his face. Then he was a stranger, treat- 
ing her like a too ambitious child. Now 
he was David, so familiar, so well un- 
derstood he was like another self, and 
she loved him. 

There was fright in this last thought 
to-night. She seemed wild and strong, 
but chained by one invisible thread of 
her own making. While she listened 
to David she found herself endeavoring 
to explain to her pride the voluntary 
surrender of her heart to this man who 
did not and might never love her. 

From this her thoughts drifted to 
the optimism in natural selection, and 
that it might be unreciprocated. After 
all, she was only following an old law. 
Other women had impulsively and si- 
lently loved men whose hearts had 
been closed to them. 

She knew that David was indiffer- 
ent. He permitted few people an ac- 
quaintance with his intimate self. He 


i 62 


A Circle in the Sand 


sought none. Yet no man had more 
friends. Pete in the office, to whom 
from sheer unconcern he had never 
spoken a kind word, felt privileged in 
some mysterious way when commis- 
sioned to carry home a parcel for him. 
Donald, in spite of the untoward cir- 
cumstances of their lives, loved him 
with all his heart. It was not strange, 
then, since David Temple was a man 
whose magnetism was a positive posses- 
sion, who owned the passive supremacy 
which steals from the recorded lives of 
Napoleon and Dean Swift, that one 
woman should have come still nearer 
to him uninvited. She seemed defend- 
ing her weakness before an invisible 
jury, and was acquitted. 

“ A splendid chance,” David was 
saying when she gave him her undi- 
vided attention again ; “ a chance not 
to be had every day. The partnership 
can be his for an absurdly small 
amount, you know, because the Eng- 
lishman who is cutting it all sickened 
in the climate and wants to get home. 


A Circle in the Sand 163 


But Donald, assisted by the good busi- 
ness men still in the company, could 
make it pay. In Brazil’’ — 

Brazil ? He’ll have to go to Brazil ? ” 
she said uncertainly. 

You haven’t been listening to me.” 
And David leaned toward her. Where 
do you suppose they grow coffee, Anne, 
— on Staten Island? Really,” he said 
urgently, nothing will help Donald 
like getting away from New York. If 
it’s hard to cut the old associations 
here, it will be just as hard to form new 
ones there. At first he would not listen 
to me, would not let me lend him the 
necessary money. It was a struggle 
between us, and I assure you, Anne, I 
humiliated myself to him.” 

Does he want to go now ? ” 

He wants to try — glad even to 
stop sketching for a while. It need only 
be for a few years. He will give up 
brain work and uncertain hours for a 
life demanding physical energy and 
systematic habits. Did I tell you,” he 
said more softly, ^^he’s to let me send 


164 A Circle in the Sand 

his -proUg^^ Joe Evans, to my old nurse 
in Connecticut? The climate down 
there would finish the little chap in a 
wink.” He started up and took a few 
steps up and down. “ I never can for- 
get my visit to his rooms the other night, 
and the sight of the sick boy there. 
Donald is a queer mixture of good and 
bad, isn’t he ? He’s done what I never 
could do, been vicious as I never could 
be, but he’s made life a heaven for one 
creature, urged to it by a humanity 
which I scarcely understand.” 

He stood before the fire and stared 
into it. There was a line between his 
brows, his glance was heavy, and Anne 
knew he was thinking of himself and 
what he lacked as perhaps he never had 
before. He sighed and moved so that 
his elbow rested on the mantel. When 
he looked down at Anne, she saw again 
the light as from a heart satisfied which 
before had puzzled her. 

“ Anne,” he said, in a musing way, 
“do I seem unlike myself to-night?” 

She nodded. She could not move 
her eyes from his. 


A Circle in the Sand 165 


“ But do I look like a man who has 
come into a rare inheritance? Do I? 
Yes, yes,” he said quickly. “ I want to 
tell you. You have been so much to 
me, I must tell you now.” 

He took the chair opposite her and 
again leaned forward. Anne sat mo- 
tionless, a heavy coldness weighting her. 

‘‘ Look at me. I am in love at last, 
as unreasonably, as hopefully, as if I 
were twenty-two.” 

There was a second’s pause. To 
Anne it was the ray between aspiration 
and chaos, all that was possible and 
what could never be. 

‘‘ I told Olga to-day I loved her, 
Anne, and she is going to marry me. 
You and I will be relatives soon,” he 
said gayly, and pressed her hand. 

There was nothing to tell him that 
she was cold and in darkness. She re- 
mained apparently quiet while her heart 
seemed cloven by a sword. She said 
everything he expected of her, some 
of the phrases quite prettily, too. She 
even laughed while the mirth was dust 


1 66 


A Circle in the Sand 


on her lip and David unreal and terrible 
to her. 

After a long time he went away, and 
she sat like a dead woman, yet curi- 
ously, painfully alive to one thought: 
she had loved him, and he had passed 
her by; Olga had won her happiness. 
The apathy left her, and she sprang up, 
her eyes suddenly wild. She hated 
Olga and envied her bitterly, but only 
for a moment. Through all her pain 
she recognized an unquestionable fatal- 
ity. The reason of her failure to draw 
to herself the man she loved lay some- 
where at the large root of things, in 
darkness, beyond the knowing. Olga’s 
success was just as inexplicable and 
impersonal. The bitter fact she could 
face and must accept, but nothing else. 

Unconscious of time, she sat still un- 
til voices in the hall and a knock at the 
door seemed to come from a long dis- 
tance. Nora, half asleep, entered with 
a letter. A messenger boy in the hall 
was rubbing his ears with his mittened 
hands. 


A Circle in the Sand 167 


Anne opened the envelope without 
curiosity, but the words aroused her, 
and pity for something besides herself 
passed over her face. 

My dear Anne : Can you come to my place 
as soon as you read this? I’m afraid it’s all up 
with poor Joe, and he keeps talking of you. Do 
come with the messenger. He won’t live through 
the night. I dare not leave his side. 

Donald. 

Anne looked at the clock. It was 
after eleven. She heard the wind 
shake the window in fury, she saw the 
snow moved like a tremendous curtain 
westward, and a groaning stole in from 
the night. The silent room became 
suddenly unendurable. 

When she stepped from her doorway 
with the boy, the wind, as if recogniz- 
ing her affinity by reason of the storm 
in her soul, welcomed her with frenzy. 
There was relief in bending her head 
against the blast, in feeling the flakes 
sting her face to burning lifej the sense 
of being needed had comfort in it, and 


1 68 


A Circle in the Sand 


the purpose of her errand surmounted 
for the time the other dull, insistent 
ache. 

The street where Donald lived was 
in the heart of the business centre, 
and mournfully quiet. The lights in 
high tenements and old-fashioned lodg- 
ing-houses flickered on lonely stretches 
of snow, traffic was muffled, and people 
passed as if with velvet-shod feet. 

Anne dismissed the messenger at 
Donald’s door, and entered alone. 
From the many small apartments came 
sounds of the life within. Through 
one open transom where tobacco-smoke 
curled she heard a German’s voice, 
raised in argument, roll out, “ Bis- 
marck!” In another room a girl was 
laughing unrestrainedly. Farther away 
the reiterations of a banjo were like 
punctuations on the silence. 

The meaning of her presence there 
struck Anne afresh and sharply. One 
room of this big house was silent, set 
apart, although no signet-mark of blood 
showed on the door. Joe, the wan 


A Circle in the Sand 169 


picker-boy, had become a personage 
with all preparations made for a myste- 
rious and final journey, and she had 
come to bid him an impressive farewell. 
At the head of the stairs she paused. A 
dread of the room beyond and the scene 
to follow came upon her, and she half 
turned away. 

But Mrs. Mulligan came down the 
hall, and under the unsheltered gaslight 
Anne saw the resigned sorrow of the 
old on her face. 

If s ye, acushla,” she said, with a 
long sigh. ^^Well, poor Joe’s gone.” 

She opened the door, showing the dim 
room, Donald at the window, his head 
bowed, and Joe’s spent body outlined 
on the bed in majestic and eternal quiet. 

Donald turned and came quickly to 
Anne’s side. He held her hand in 
silence for a moment. 

‘^1 suppose I shouldn’t have asked 
you to come,” he said, lifting the snowy 
cloak from her shoulders, ^^but Joe 
wanted you. Only a few moments af- 
ter the messenger had gone, he died.” 


170 A Circle in the Sand 


There was a defiant, unhappy smile on 
his lips. “ His reprieve was short-lived, 
wasn’t it? And I had meant to make 
him happy. I was not permitted, you 
see. Perhaps I was not fit.” 

“ Don’t — don’t — Donald ” — And 
Anne, unable to say more, sat down 
beside the bed. 

The room was silent. Mrs. Mulligan 
had stopped the clock, and the hands 
pointed to the last moment of Joe’s life. 
The old woman who had so sincerely 
loved the waif drew the cloth to the 
sharp chin and stood like a figure of 
Fate, drearily nodding. The boy’s face 
wore the look of fixed appeal with 
which the dead can disarm even hate. 

“ A wild night to die ! ” sighed Mrs. 
Mulligan, striking her palms softly to- 
gether. “ He was a small gossoon to go 
so far alone. Poor Joe! Ye’ll never 
hould me yarn for me again. Fll miss 
ye, ’cushla, sore Fll miss ye.” Break- 
ing into sobs, she went out. 

“Anne, I want to speak to you.” 

The words were a breath and spoken 


A Circle in the Sand 


171 

over her shoulder. Anne half turned, 
when Donald’s hand was laid upon her 
arm. 

“No,” he said quickly, “don’t look 
at me. Let me say what I must here.” 

His dark, agonized face was bent 
above her as she sat in a waiting atti- 
tude, her eyes on the silent clock. A 
lock of hair lay on her shoulder, and 
Donald’s fingers touched it stealthily 
during a moment’s pause. 

“ How can I say what I want to ? ” 
he asked helplessly. “ But I needn’t 
say all. You know what you’ve been 
to me. Anne, this room holds all my 
worse than useless life has known — 
you and what was Joe. His eyes are 
forever closed, the first whose wor- 
ship I felt I deserved. You don’t know 
what that meant to me. His look was 
like a waiting pardon, no matter what 
my sins.” 

She tried to lift her hand and speak, 
but he pressed it back, still avoiding her 
gaze. 

“What I was to Joe,” he said, “ you’ve 


172 


A Circle in the Sand 


been to me — that and more. The bond 
between us makes me know that in 
some dear sense I belong to you — that 
you will be made glad or sad by what 
I may become. Well, far away from 
you in a land where I shall be alone 
and lonely I’m going to work, thinking 
of you. After to-night I may not see 
you again for years. When I am fit 
I’ll come back, and I may say to you 
then, Anne, what now I must only 
whisper from shadow and without a 
hope. I love you. You are more to 
me than creed or church or prayers, 
for you’ve done what those couldn’t. 
And I love you for yourself, apart from 
this altogether. I love you, Anne, I 
love you.” 

His voice faltered. Anne rose and 
faced him. It seemed as if chords in 
her soul had been struck harshly that 
night, but in some insolvable way a 
wondrous harmony had resulted. The 
yearning sentiment which Donald had 
always inspired in her rose to some- 
thing more. In being hope, desire, and 


A Circle in the Sand 


173 


strength to him there was a responsi- 
bility of joy and pain ‘ she could not 
wholly accept, )^et would not repulse. 
She gave him her hands, her mouth 
quivering like a child’s. Her eyes were 
all tenderness and confidence. 

I don’t deserve a love like this,” she 
said seriously. “ How little I deserve 
it! But I’ll remember, Donald.” 

She sighed and looked at him in- 
tently. 

“ I’ll remember all you’ve said.” But 
when his eyes grew more wistful she 
looked away. 

It was after two o’clock when Donald 
left her at her door and said good-by. 
She watched him down the street, and 
saw him stand once in the drifting snow 
and look back. 

She went slowly up the stairs and 
into the sitting-room, where the fire had 
been kept bright. A mocking presence 
seemed to greet her. Just within the 
door she leaned against the wall. There 
was the snow-padded window, the cur- 
tain drawn back as her hand had placed 


174 


A Circle in the Sand 


it. By the fire was the chair in which 
David Temple had sat. She saw the 
book on which her elbow had rested 
as she had listened to him. 

In the shock of Joe’s death and Don- 
ald’s unexpected words the memory of 
the bitter hour spent there had been 
crowded back. Now it started into full 
life, and apprehensive disgust of the 
days to come nullified other feeling 
within her. 

“ Oh, to forget, to forget, to forget ! ” 

She flung off cloak and hat and sat 
down at her desk before the window. 
Her lips were set and seemed to have 
been brushed with ashes. Her eyes 
were shut beneath frowning brows. 
She would forget — she must. She 
could not bear the days to come un- 
less she did forget. 

Before her lay the portfolio holding 
the pages of her neglected novel. 
Scarcely knowing what she did, she 
opened it and laid her hands upon the 
leaves. A phrase here and there caught 
her eyes, the names of the characters 


A Circle in the Sand 


175 


she had created. A deeper attraction 
for the work awoke in her; desire for 
sleep departed, and she felt alive to her 
finger-tips. 

She bent over the pages, and her pen 
went haltingly at first, but by degrees a 
new desire dominated her, and nothing 
but the thought and the word born of 
the thought were real to her. All else 
had failed. This power in herself was 
strong and true. Though all other de- 
lights forsook her, this never would. 

Her cheek was gray, and the light 
had gone from her eyes, whose lashes 
were stiffened with tears. But she was 
no longer unhappy. The drifting mists 
of that strange dawn fled under the full 
sunlight and found her still writing. 


Chapter XV 


S EVEN months had passed since 
David’s marriage in April, 

They had gone by for Anne in a 
vague, uncounted way, not in days, but 
in dreams, during which only the mental 
half of her had seemed to live, and the 
word “ work ” had been her shibboleth. 

Her finished novel, smelling of 
printer’s ink, lay on her knees. In an 
absent way she fondled it, ruffled the 
pages against her cheek, and kissed it. 
She had begun it when her heart was 
bleeding, had given herself to it during 
hours when she should have slept, had 
walked with it as with a spirit, had 
known no other love nor friend during 
those seven months. 

And it had repaid her with comfort, 
encouragement, and the assurance of 
ideals grasped. She held it as a mother 

176 


A Circle in the Sand 


177 


her child, and felt an exquisite peace. 
No one in all the world ever could 
know her like that little book. 

The firelit room was restful. Her 
thoughts strayed back to forbidden 
scenes. She could think of them to- 
day without the old sickening sense of 
loss, when the future had seemed to 
hold no force sufficient to wipe out or 
rebuild. She had learned to spell the 
meaning of life ; it was part of life 
which had crushed her to tears, the 
mixed human life, made up of sorrows, 
affronts, defeats, just such philosophy 
as she comforted herself with now, and 
the joy which might sometime be hers. 

For seven months she had not seen 
David Temple. He had taken Olga 
through the lands he had dreamed 
of visiting since his boyhood. An im- 
petuous, characteristic scrawl had 
occasionally come from Olga, chiefly 
at the close of letters from David in 
which he had rambled on in his old, 
half-teasing, brilliant style, treating her 
with the same fascinating camaraderie 


178 A Circle in the Sand 


which had once quickened her foolish 
heart into a surrender he had not de- 
sired. From lands whose postmarks 
had suggested visions of strange, fantas- 
tic beauty these letters had drifted like 
echoes of brilliant rhapsodies across the 
semi-tones of her life. 

The first fortnight of the honeymoon 
had been spent at Ponto del Gado in 
the Azores, a rare land of sea-encircled 
silence, the camellias thickly fallen 
from the trees making a carpet like 
perfumed snow for the earth. They 
lived in a cream-colored villa with 
coral-pink shutters ; it was built on a 
green hill plateau and approached by a 
stairway hewn out of lava from some 
early volcanic torrent; the blue reaches 
of the Atlantic swept to the blue 
horizon line on every side, until the 
world seemed domed and steeped in 
azure. 

From the heights of Mustapha Supe- 
rieur outside Algiers, they had watched 
the fuchsia-pink of fleeting spring 
dusks die on the Mediterranean, and 


A Circle in the Sand 


179 


had walked under the moon in the 
cemetery of a mosque a thousand years 
old. 

They had lived in a semi-ruined 
palace in Venice, the street beneath 
their windows a radiant river holding 
the stars and moon and the wavering 
shadows of gondoliers whose oars 
dipped to music near and far away ; 
they had watched a bull-fight in Seville ; 
played at Monte Carlo; and, drifting 
among the narrow fjords, had felt the 
weird beauty of the midnight sun in 
Norway. The past two months had 
found them in England, guests at sev- 
eral country houses. Soon they were 
coming home. 

Anne sat back and clasped her hands 
behind her head. On the desk beside 
her lay three letters : one offered her 
the assistant editor’s chair on a new 
weekly paper ; one ready for the post 
was her acceptance ; the other was to 
David and contained her resignation. 
In withdrawing from the “ Citizen,” 
her intimate attitude to David would be 


i8o 


A Circle in the Sand 


changed : they would meet seldom. 
This was all she desired now. 

The ship which carried David and 
Olga, among some other hundreds of 
souls, arrived in New York on a misty 
November afternoon. 

Dr. Ericsson was at the wharf to 
meet them. They were to dine that 
night en famille at the old house in 
Waverly place. 

‘‘ Anne can’t be with us,” said the 
old man regretfully as the carriage took 
them up Broadway. “ Her old home 
in the country is without a tenant at 
present, and she’s taking a rest there. 
She’s been working too hard, too stead- 
ily, night and day.” 

“ She’s a fool,” said Olga from her 
corner, where she sat wrapped in furs 
to the nose. “ She’ll be used up in five 
years.” 

David felt his heart grow warm at 
the mention of Anne’s name. The old 
life would be delightful again. He 
had lost many ideals during the long 
honeymoon, and now longed for work. 


A Circle in the Sand 


i8i 


the rush of the ‘‘ Citizen’s” rooms, where 
discussions on life’s verities shot to and 
fro like a weaver’s shuttle. He longed 
for a sight of Anne at her corner desk, 
with bent profile or cheek resting in her 
hand. His marriage should not alter the 
friendship which had been in its way 
more satisfying, as it surely was rarer, 
than love. A comrade of a pretty, clever 
woman was the best gift a man could 
have in life. And he knew Anne would 
be glad to have him back. She must 
have missed him, for she chose few 
friends, and none had been to her like 
him. 

“ Tell me about Anne,” he said eager- 
ly, while he gazed with pleasure at the 
familiar street scenes framed in the 
carriage windows. ‘‘ She’s well, isn’t 
she ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, indeed! ” said Dr. Ericsson, 
with a bright smile. ‘‘ Why shouldn’t 
she be ? If, as they say, a woman thrives 
on admiration, she’s had quite enough 
to turn that dark-tressed head of hers. 
You know about her book?” 


i 82 


A Circle in the Sand 


“No. Is it finished? You don’t mean 
she’s had her book published ? She did 
not write that bit of news. I call it sly 
of her.” 

“ Perhaps she doubted its merit, its re- 
ception. She doubts no longer. There 
are plenty of books chucked at the 
public, but seldom one like hers. Every- 
body is recommending it to everybody 
else.” 

“ This is great news. Do you hear, 
Olga? ” 

But Olga was asleep. 

“ Morgan did a good thing for him- 
self when he got her for the ‘ Planet,’ 
didn’t he ? ” asked Dr. Ericsson. “ You’ll 
miss her on the ‘ Citizen.’ ” 

“ What do you mean ? ” asked David- 
“ I don’t know what you’re talking 
about.” 

“ But you knew Anne was no longer 
with the ‘ Citizen.’ ” 

“ No, I didn’t.” 

“ She wrote you ten days — two 
weeks ago.” 

“ I didn’t get the letter, then.” And 


A Circle in the Sand 183 


David sat back, making no effort to hide 
his disappointment. 

After learning the particulars he was 
silent. He could not realize that Anne 
was gone, and with her to a great extent 
the influence in his life he desired and 
loved in the purest sense. He longed 
to be with her again that night. There 
was much he wanted to talk to her 
about. He wanted to see her come 
toward him and welcome him. He 
wanted to hear her bright account of 
the multitude of incidents which had 
happened during the months he had 
been away. She had a pretty trick 
when talking of bringing her fist down 
upon her knee in the most gentle way, 
that had always reminded him of a 
flower striking its head against a wall, 
— he wanted to see that, and her up- 
lifted face, and to hear her quick 
laugh. He had felt a similar, but less 
intricate, craving for a chum at school 
after the division of the holidays. 

The feeling strengthened during the 
night, and long after Olga had gone to 


184 A Circle in the Sand 


her first land sleep on a bed that didn’t 
wabble he found himself treading the 
stairs leading to the ‘‘ Citizen ” offices. 
It was close upon midnight. He had 
not been expected until morning, and 
his coming made a sensation. In a 
twinkling he was in the midst of the old 
life, finding at that unexpected moment 
a score of questions to decide and the 
usual turmoil singing in the air. He 
flung himself into the work, his disap- 
pointment about Anne almost forgotten 
in the earnestness of the hour. 

But in the early morning, when with 
the wet first copy of the paper in his 
hand he stood before her deserted desk, 
a sense of loss crept coldly over him. 
Would he never see her sitting there 
again ? 


Chapter XVI 



‘HE old Temple mansion on lower 


Fifth avenue seemed to wink sur- 


prise from its windows at the changes 
which had taken place within its walls 
for months before and weeks after its 
master’s return. Staircases had been 
reversed, rooms halved or multiplied, 
windows made over, and the furniture 
of many generations removed to make 
room for the treasures Olga had brought 
with her from Europe. 

When completed at Christmas-time, 
it was as beautiful as rare rugs, china, 
and genuine antiquities could make it. 

Since her earliest memory Olga had 
never been given a penny to spend 
without the accompaniment of a cau- 
tion to use it to the best advantage, as 
there were few to follow. Later her 
insatiable need of luxuries beyond her 


A Circle in the Sand 


i86 

reach had been gratified by the mount- 
ing up of bills, but the unpleasantness 
of debt had followed and eaten half 
the pleasure. As David Temple’s wife 
she found herself for the first time able 
to command money, and she spent it. 
Luxuries became needs, fashionable 
rivalries troubled her, and she lay 
awake devising competitive extrava- 
gances. It was her ambition to be 
not only the beauty of her set, but 
a famous beauty and the most talked- 
of woman of her time. Celebrated 
belles of the past had found a place 
in history, either by their splendid gal- 
lantries, wit, or by the originality of 
their caprices. 

The age she lived in did not view 
the first with the palliative shrug be- 
longing to the days of Charles II. and 
Louis XIV.; the second was beyond 
her; but a startling outlay of money by 
a beauty of good position could create 
a heroine in this money-worshipping 
time. 

“ You are splendid,” Smedley Joyce 


A Circle in the Sand 


187 


said to her, surveying her with mono- 
cle held up. ^^You need splendor. 
You’re the very one to set the pace in 
society. We have no social successes 
here worth mentioning, unless I except 
myself. But you can become leader 
and attract rivals. That sort of thing 
gives verve^ you know. The day will 
come when American society will not 
be the vapid thing it is now, and even 
self-complacent, non-travelled France 
will at least have heard our names. 
You are beautiful, young, rich, and a 
capital actress. Use your gifts well, 
startle by your originalities, make a 
feature of the drama in the drawing- 
room, spend all the money 3’'ou can 
command in a way that will create 
notice, — do these things and you will 
be a success.” 

Olga laid the lesson to heart. Her 
country-house on the Sound, purchased 
from a fallen millionaire, soon outdid 
in cost and display her town-house. 
Her next craze was for horses, and she 
had stables built with stalls of oak and 


A Circle in the Sand 


1 88 

trimmings of copper. A chic Marie 
Antoinette boudoir on the upper floor 
was the most bizarre touch, and a small 
musicale given there attracted the re- 
porters of society gossip. 

She produced at her own house an 
old comedy of suflScient frankness to 
create a sensation among her familiars 
and make the curious of humbler status 
ache for a sight of her. She made sen- 
sational hits by unique methods of be- 
stowing charity. She became one of 
the most talked-of women in New 
York. 

David lived with her, watched her. 
Every day he learned something new 
of the shallow, self-centred nature 
masked by a loveliness which de- 
spite his reasoning subdued him still. 
He could have checked her extrava- 
gance, controlled her. He preferred 
to do neither, for he knew that in be- 
coming her master her fear of him 
would have to be the weapon in his 
hand, her secret hate the result. 

His fortune was a splendid one. The 


A Circle in the Sand 189 


actual money spent, great though it was, 
troubled him little, but Olga’s insensate 
desire for spending helped to reveal her 
to him. Her vanity, which she took no 
pains to hide, was a continual affront. 

They never quarrelled, seldom dis- 
agreed. Olga was affectionate, soft, 
gentle, as of old. No man could be 
insensible to her charm. But David 
divined how quickly the amiable smile 
would have changed to stolid dislike 
had her whims been interfered with. 
She went her own way serenely, no 
soul in her life, none in her kiss, lov- 
ing nothing in the world save her own 
white and perfect body. 

David was conscious of these truths, 
yet chose not to see them too clearly. 
He remained wilfully dull-sighted. He 
did not dare to think, decide, accept. 
Why fight the irremediable ? Why 
plunge his mind in shadows ? Why 
face the fact that in the most serious 
relation of life he had committed an 
amazing piece of folly? Rather let 
him accept Olga as she was, not the 


1 90 


A Circle in the Sand 


woman of his impassioned fancy. Let 
him demand only what she could give, 
and learn to subdue his hunger for an 
existence she could not be part of nor 
understand. Let him refrain from 
fathoming the muddy shallows of her 
soul, by degrees need her less, and 
draw around himself the comfort of an 
irresistible indifference. Better so for 
the peace of his life. 

But sometimes a memory would 
trouble David Temple and leave his 
heart sad. He would think of the 
day he had heard the pale singer 
whisper of the damozel who watched 
from heaven for her lover, and he 
would remember how in that moment 
his heart had grown large with joy as 
he looked at Olga’s face. It had really 
been but the stir of the upper waves of 
passion, and he had fancied the sea- 
depths troubled, but from that moment’s 
ache and rapture he had known what 
love might be in a life when it stayed. 


Chapter XVII 


M y dear DONALD : You want me to 
tell you just where I am and how I look 
whenever I write to you — a habit, by the way, 
which may make me very conceited. 

Well, then, it is a wet Sunday, but soft and hazy 
as wet June days are. The windows are open and 
the big tree outside drips a burden of rain-tears. 
The sky is all mist, with the blue only a little way 
beyond. I have had a lazy morning, and now after 
a cold plunge and a cup of tea I am sitting in a 
white morning-gown and my hair hangs down my 
back in a long plait. Are these details satisfactory ? 
I have a big bunch of roses in the copper bowl you 
gave me, and the bell of the French church is call- 
ing the people to worship. Oh, it’s good to be 
at peace with everything created ! Hours like this 
are the heaven of my week. Woman is a luxurious 
animal, and when she spends six days with disci- 
pline and routine as I do, she is very apt to go to 
pieces on the seventh. Behold me, then, to-day, 
degenerate, not going to church, not improving 
my mind, not in a stiff collar, and guiltless of a 
hairpin. 


192 


A Circle in the Sand 


The new Planet gets on famously. I have a 
little room and a big desk all to myself. Proof- 
readers and others confer ” with me. Think of it ! 
I feel quite a personage, Donald, but I think my 
expression is not changed in consequence. I go 
to the office every day and leave at about three. 
Generally I write on my new book until dinner. 
Of course this programme is frequently changed. 
I go out a good deal, and have met lots of people 
who simply suggest ^^copy ” with every turn of the 
head, created for no other purpose, I’m sure, than 
to have me write about them. Yes, I am still a 
student of life.” Will you never stop teasing me 
about that phrase? How often I think of the 
queer sights we saw together when you were direct- 
ing my instruction ! Didn’t we enjoy them, Donald, 
that old Russian exile, — I can hear his violin 
now, — the first time I saw the Citizen’s ” presses 
going like mad, the nook in the degenerate back 
street where we had tea and speculated about 
Paris ? 

You see what your command to talk about my- 
self has done. I have talked of nothing else. 
Did you get the papers I sent about the dinner 
and cotillion at Olga’s? I can’t tell you how 
beautiful she looked. Why, by the way, do you 
think David isn’t happy? Why shouldn’t he be? 
He has married the woman he loves, and is able 
to surround her with the luxury she requires to be 
content. Perhaps he would prefer not to be the 


A Circle in the Sand 


193 


husband of a society beauty on whom the lens is 
always fixed. In fact, I know Olga’s display must 
jar upon him. But he is wise enough to know 
that no life holds all. If he loves her, the rest is 
mere detail. If he doesn’t — well, I don’t know, 
Donald. David is a man to hide well what he 
wishes to hide, and have an inner life without a 
hint betraying it. They act in society as do all 
people with a proper idea of form — pay not the 
slightest attention to each other. Let us hope the 
tone of David’s letter to you was only the result of 
a passing mood. 

And now to talk of yourself. I hope you are 
well and feel more happy now on that sleepy 
plantation. I feel so glad when you write with 
courage. Try not to be homesick. The sketches 
you sent are beautiful, and you are right to keep 
up your sketching. 

You are unfair to say I don’t miss you. I do 
indeed, and think of you often. Write a happy 
letter next time. I’ll look for it. Tell me more 
about the business, and don’t be disappointed if you 
can’t make money as fast as you’d like. You are 
sure to win if you are patient. With good wishes 
from my heart, Anne. 


Chapter XVIII 


MONEY panic not wholly un- 



Ix. looked for fell upon the country. 
Railroads went under, stocks fell, banks 
failed, and in the depression ruin was 
written after prominent names. Others, 
while holding an apparently unchanged 
position, had lost heavily and expected 
the worst. 

David was one of the latter. By 
August he found himself but a little 
way from the edge of disaster. The 
calamity stunned him. He thought of 
his uncalculated expenditures, of Olga’s 
insatiable demands. After seven sleep- 
less nights he went to Newport, where^ 
unmindful of her empty country-house 
on the Sound, Olga had rented a cot- 
tage. They had an interview on the 
big terrace fronting the sea. By this 
time they had reached the condition of 


A Circle in the Sand 


^95 


null domesticity when they saw each 
other as seldom as possible, and had in- 
terviews. David was tenderly consid- 
erate. He went into the most tiresome 
business details, trying to simplify them 
and make her understand. She scarcely 
listened. He knew that by the expres- 
sion of her quiet eyes. He urged the 
need of economy. She shrugged her 
shoulders with a tolerant smile, but 
offered no resistance when he spoke of 
selling the country-house on Long Isl- 
and and the eccentric stable. Secretly 
she was tired of them both. 

^Ht seems immensely stupid to let 
your affairs get so muddled,’’ she said, 
in her soft voice ; “ but you’ll pull out 
all right. Men always do.” 

You don’t understand, Olga. This 
is no passing breeze. We are in the 
midst of a storm, and how it will end 
God alone knows. The ‘ Citizen ’ is 
safe. I am the heaviest stockholder 
there, and if the worst comes I can sell 
my interest.” 

But the worst won’t come,” she 


196 A Circle in the Sand 


said slowly, and looked up at him from 
under her shady hat with an expression 
not unlike hatred. 

“ You’d better face now what might 
be. I hardly know where I stand.” 

He spoke coldly. He was antago- 
nized by her tranquil selfishness when 
he remembered his nights of suspense. 

“ But you’ll come out of it all right,” 
she quietly insisted. “ Fortunes go up 
and down. Other men have been in 
awkward places lots of times, but they 
have managed to escape unhurt, and 
you must do the same. Bertie Ogden 
was telling me only the other day that 
when things were lively in Wall street, 
and some men failed, it was the time 
for others to seize the opportunity and 
make money. He said it was like 
vultures battening on a wounded bird. 
Suppose you batten a little, David Or 
are you too conscientious? I wish I 
understood business. I’d tell you what 
to do.” 

She stood up and shook out her 
mauve lace-ruffled skirt. He saw she 


A Circle in the Sand 


197 


was pale to the lips. After the kiss of 
greeting she had not touched him or 
spoken one word of comfort or cour- 
age. And he hoped for these things 
still from her, though since she bore 
his name she had taken no pains to 
cheat him. 

“ One needs money to seize the 
chance of standing in a fallen man’s 
place,” he said, trying to be patient. 
“ What if I have none ? If I paid our 
tremendous debts, which a few months 
ago it seemed only consistently fashion- 
able to accumulate, Pd have scarcely 
anything but my interest in the paper 
left. Do you quite realize now where 
we stand? Do you know what it costs 
to live as we’ve been living? I’ve 
been very generous with you, Olga. 
You can’t say I’ve denied you any- 
thing, even when I should, perhaps.” 

“ Generous ? ” she said, her eyelids 
falling insolently. “ I don’t like that 
word. It’s out of fashion between 
husbands and wives. When you mar- 
ried me, what you had became mine. 


198 A Circle in the Sand 


I spent it as my right. If you’d in- 
terfered, you’d soon have understood 
that I held this view.” 

She looked frivolous and winsome 
as she stood in the soft light, striking 
a long-stemmed rose against her skirt 
as she spoke. David felt a mixed sen- 
sation of tenderness, pity, and amuse- 
ment seize him at the thought that 
the right to her husband’s purse was 
the only advanced problem Olga had 
been interested enough to attempt to 
solve. Despite the crisis of the mo- 
ment and his sore heart, he was dis- 
posed to question her farther. He 
leaned forward, letting his elbow rest 
on his knee, and seizing the head of 
the rose she toyed with, held her so. 

“ But I don’t agree with you,” he 
said quietly. 

“ Oh, I suppose you’d have doled me 
out dollars if you’d dared and made me 
keep an account,” she said. “ Perhaps 
that’s your view.” 

“No. As I said before, although 
you do not like the word, I am gener- 


A Circle in the Sand 


199 


ous. I would give you half my income, 
or more, perhaps, but your right to it I 
deny.” 

“ I can’t argue with you. I only 
know what I think.” 

‘‘ Can’t you tell me why you think 
it? ” 

“Well, I married you. I’ve given 
up my freedom for you, made your life 
mine, therefore everything you possess 
should be equally mine,” she said inso- 
lently. 

“ But in becoming my wife do you 
make me your debtor ? ” 

“Well, something of that sort.” 

“ My dear Olga,” — and David looked 
at her with wise and tender eyes, — 
“ you are not the first woman who has 
made that mistake. Just consider the 
matter from a reasonable point of 
view.” 

She looked out at sea, her face ex- 
pressing rebellion and unbelief. 

“ Marriage should be a bond bring- 
ing as much happiness to a woman as 
to a man. I asked you to marry me 


200 


A Circle in the Sand 


because I loved you. I supposed you 
came to me as gladly for the same 
reason. Had I thought otherwise, 
nothing under heaven would have made 
me accept you as a wife. I didn’t want 
a sacrifice, I didn’t want to buy you, 
and if either of these things has hap- 
pened I may count myself a wretched 
man. Therefore, at the beginning, we 
stood equal in love. Loving each 
other, we married. We were une- 
qually mated in regard to fortune. It 
was all mine. Do not misunderstand me. 
I was glad it was so. But why should 
half what I personally possess become 
yours, when a third or a fourth is more 
than enough for you to be extravagant 
upon ? Perhaps because you think 
you’ve made me happy Weren’t you 
as happy to be with me ? Or perhaps 
because you gave up your freedom to 
share my life.^ That should be no loss 
if you loved me, dear. Besides, loving 
you, didn’t I gladly surrender a wider 
liberty ? That equal division as a right, 
of which there’s been a great deal said 


A Circle in the Sand 


201 


lately, ought, in my view, only to exist 
under two conditions.” 

“ I am curious to hear what they 
are,” said Olga scornfully. 

“ Where a man of fortune is mad 
enough to buy a woman as his wife, 
aware that she has no love for him ” — 

“ Well?” 

His fingers stole up the flower-stem 
until they clasped hers wistfully. 

‘‘ Or where a woman becomes a 
mother,” he said very softly. “ Olga, 
the woman who accepts and makes 
beautiful this responsibility might rightly 
command not half, but all, her husband’s 
fortune, though she had been a beggar- 
maid and he a king. They are not equal 
there. Then she has sacred rights. She 
becomes a divine mystery. Then he 
might well worship her. His heart’s 
blood should not be too precious to 
spend for her. Do you understand me, 
dear ? ” 

She suffered his fingers to cling to 
hers while she continued to look at the 
sea. There was prayer in the hand- 


202 


A Circle in the Sand 


clasp. He was trying to read her 
thoughts. Her bosom stirred a little 
under its laces, her eyes were almost 
tender and doubtful. But a shade set- 
tled upon her beautiful face, and with it 
came decision. The rose fell from her 
fingers. 

“ You go to extremes, David,” she 
said, with a tolerant smile. “ When 
we have children, later, — some time or 
other, — I won’t ask your heart’s blood 
nor want to be considered a mystery. 
I’ll be content with a yacht or a house 
in London, or something thoroughly 
practical, as you’ll see. I’m going to 
drive. Will you come.^” 

“No, I must go back to town to- 
night.” 

“ Then we’ve finished about this tire- 
some money business.^” she asked, lift- 
ing a pair of long gloves from the back 
of a chair. 

“We have if I’ve made you un- 
derstand our position,” and he passed 
his hands over his face in a distracted 
way. 


A Circle in the Sand 


203 


You really mean we’re in danger of 
beggary?” she asked, with sudden 
passion. Do you mean that?” 

Must I go over it all again ? Don’t 
you believe me ? Don’t suppose I’m 
trying to terrorize you. What I say 
now is the simple truth, and I’ll say it 
clearly, leaving out all the technicalities 
of a business explanation. In the pres- 
ent crisis more than half my principal 
has depreciated to almost nothing; a 
good deal has been lost. Suppose the 
rest goes ? ” 

He faced her. His lips were set in a 
line of endurance, around his were 
the haggard traces of care, the thick 
lock which fell over his forehead had a 
grayness which aged him. It seemed 
to him that had she been capable of 
even a little pity she would have come 
to him, taken his face in her hands, and 
kissed him. 

She pursed up her lips and considered 
a moment. When she spoke quietly, 
there was concentrated meaning in her 
tones. 


204 


A Circle in the Sand 


‘‘ I shouldn’t like to be poor again. I 
don’t think I’d take that condition of 
affairs calmly. It seems to me I’d do 
something reckless; I don’t know what.” 

She went to him and clasped her 
arms, bare to the elbow, around his 
neck. 

“ Do you love me at all still ? ” she 
asked earnestly. “ You don’t love me 
as you used to, but do you love me at 
all?” 

He bent his lips to her wrist, and a 
terrible sadness came into his eyes. 

“ I love you, dear. I want to save 
ymu from pain.” 

‘‘Then don’t become a poor man, 
David. Don’t, in God’s name! Do 
anything to get the money back,” she 
said, moved out of herself for the first 
time. “ I’ve had poverty all my life, all 
my life. Oh, how I loathe it I Yes, I 
loathe it I You think me selfish. I know 
you do, and I am. But I wouldn’t really 
harm you nor hurt you if I can have 
an easy life and not the gall of poverty 
again. I’m not a great woman, nor a 


A Circle in the Sand 


205 


particularly good woman, but I think 
if I were robbed of this life ” — and she 
looked into the rich, dim rooms — I 
might be a hard, bad woman. Save me 
from that in saving yourself I ” And 
she clung to him. Save me, David! 
Promise you will ! ” 

“ I promise,’’ he said in a tone which 
set her apart from him. 

As he crossed the terrace to the open 
window he trod on the flower lying be- 
tween them. 


Chapter XIX 


I T was the evening of Election Day. 

Broadway was a jumble of Ameri- 
can types moving under a light fog 
which made every street-lamp a star in 
a veil. 

From the windows of the street-car 
in which Anne sat she saw the strag- 
gling processions giving enthusiastic 
party cries, politicians on the corners, 
and ragged boys racing past with 
barrels and shutters which were to 
blaze later in splendid impartiality, no 
matter which side won. 

It was after six o’clock, and she was 
on her way to the “ Citizen ” with a 
“ special ” on a timely topic David had 
asked her to write. She could have 
sent it down, but the idea of going to 
the old place on this wild night when 
Newspaper Row was a seat of war had 

206 


A Circle in the Sand 


207 


been persistently with her all day. The 
building in the upper part of the town 
where she now spent her days was 
quiet and had a rarefied editorial flavor. 
It was not as dear as these slimy, 
crowded streets, with offices as con- 
fused as ant-hills, in nearer neighborhood 
to the sky. Lime-light and the smell of 
grease-paint will awaken numbed long- 
ings in the mind of an actor who has 
forsworn the buskin, and the same 
fascination drew Anne to the ‘‘ Citizen ” 
to-night for a taste of the old life which 
had the savor of salt. 

She left the car and made her way 
among the crowds around the City 
Hall. There were packed masses 
gathered early to wait for the first 
election signal-lights on the big build- 
ings. There were others pressed against 
the great newspaper barracks where 
bulletins in black capitals told of politi- 
cal failure or success, according to the 
point of view. It seemed to Anne that 
the confused noises of the warring earth 
must at last besiege heaven as a sob. 


2o8 


A Circle in the Sand 


At the entrance of the ‘‘ Citizen ” 
building an electric light as fierce as 
the politics of the paper blazed upon 
the moving crowds. It fell upon many 
faces, all earnest, strained, or preoccu- 
pied, and on one as familiar to Anne as 
her hand. David was among the num- 
ber coming down the muddy stone 
hall, and she made her way toward 
him. 

But a second glance brought her to a 
standstill. She read consternation and 
despair in his changed face. As he 
pushed his way toward the door with- 
out a glance on either side, she waited 
in anxiety till he should reach her and 
she would know what grief had come 
upon him. But his eyes met hers 
blankly as he passed on without a word. 

Anne hesitated, gazing at the angle 
where he had disappeared; then an 
irresistible desire to hear him speak 
forced her back to the street. She fol- 
lowed him, the “ special ” forgotten in 
her hand. 

He was suffering from some shock, 


A Circle in the Sand 


209 


and fear made riot in her thoughts. 
Confused ideas of unhappiness in his 
home, disaster, the death of some one 
dear, the loss of faith, crowded one 
another in her mind as she hurried on 
through the mist, her eyes upon him. 

She noticed that nothing attracted 
his attention, not the raucous cries of 
newsboys, the arrest of a thief, nor the 
bulletins heralding coming election 
triumphs. Filled by a storm which 
drew his thoughts inward, he walked 
with unseeing eyes; and Anne followed 
him, conscious only of the ache in her- 
self and the desire to be near him. So 
they swept on, two atoms in the human 
stream, now in shadow, now in light, 
until Newspaper Row was left well be- 
hind and the big bridge was reached. 

Anne understood the feelings which 
had urged David here. It was the soli- 
tude which a lighthouse lends above a 
snarling sea. The city lay beneath a 
pall of vapor. Light came hazily from 
the peaked shadows of houses, seem- 
ing from this height the pitiful abode of 


210 


A Circle in the Sand 


earth-grubbers. Search-lights from tow- 
ers, winking rays from crimson lamps 
on street-cars far below, wavered on 
the fog, and the adagio of human life 
sweeping upward was an unsyllabled 
moaning as if from the heart of a giant 
Tantalus. 

When the street scenes were left be- 
hind and the river raced beneath the 
bridge, the voice was the same as the 
city’s in another key. Wave slipped 
into wave with sighing, and the water 
torn by churning boats gushed in a rip- 
pling minor. 

In the shade between the towers 
David paused. He stood with folded 
arms and looked back to where the 
lights on the “ Citizen ” building flamed 
like great stars. The pallor of his face, 
the contracted brow, the long look full 
of dejection, told of absolute surrender 
to despair. 

Anne watched him, while passers-by 
eddied betvv^een them. She longed to 
slip her hand into his, to know she was 
desired and necessary in his life. Her 


A Circle in the Sand 


21 1 


throat ached, her heart went wildly out 
to him. But all desire to make him 
conscious of her presence left her. He 
had come there to face his grief alone. 
He had no need of her. She turned 
away and left him to his implacable 
thoughts, the solitude, and night. 


Chapter XX 


W HEN David reached home it 
was after eight o’clock. He 
went at once to the library and touched 
the bell. 

“Has Mrs. Temple gone out yet?” 
he asked the servant. 

“No, sir. Mrs. Temple’s dressing. 
She’s almost ready, sir.” 

“Ask her to stop here on her way 
out.” 

He sat down before the fire. The 
grip of his fingers upon his knees 
showed nervous intensity; his eyes 
were strained. 

Overhead he heard Olga’s light steps. 
She was busy with puff and powder-box 
preparing for the part she was to play 
at the Amateur Club that night. The 
rble was comedy. It would be altered 
after hearing one word from his lips. 


A Circle in the Sand 


213 


He looked restlessly toward the door. 
After his self-communing on the bridge 
above the never-quiet river the stillness 
of the house was tormenting; it seemed 
waiting for the crisis ; the clock in the 
shadow beyond the door seemed a soft- 
tongued watcher spying upon him. 

Olga would soon come, and he would 
tell her all. She would suffer bitterly. 
But he could feel no pity for her, none 
for himself. He had been bitten by an- 
guish in the foggy night with the river- 
lights around him. Now he felt like a 
stone. 

As he heard Olga’s step he rose and 
faced the door. She came with some 
light word of greeting on her lips, but 
it was not spoken, and she remained in 
an advancing pose, her eyes upon him. 
They presented a violent contrast, creat- 
ures of different worlds, it seemed, — 
Frivolity looking on the face of Pain. 

As Lady Teazle Olga wore the gown 
required for the quarrel scene. Laces 
and jewels were mysteriously arranged 
on the stiff pink brocade, her throat 


214 


A Circle in the Sand 


was like snow, and so was her high 
coifed hair; her dreaming eyes were 
made insinuating by a line of cosmetic ; 
a touch of carmine was on her cheeks. 
She was radiant, dainty, alluringly false. 

The night dews clung to David. 
His hair was wet and roughened by 
his restless fingers. Each feature was 
sharpened from the rigors of fierce 
emotion. His sunken eyes, which had 
scarcely known sleep for a week, were as 
dull as if blindness had come upon then. 

“ What has happened ? ” Olga asked, 
after that long, stupefied look ; and 
there was fear in her eyes. She did 
not move toward him. Her hand upon 
the back of a chair seemed a carved 
part of it. 

“ I’ve had news, Olga, news which 
I received by a private source to-day, 
which all the country will know to- 
morrow, when the wheels of business 
roar again.” 

“ Bad news ? You speak coolly 
enough, yet look — oh, how you look! 
Have you seen a ghost 


A Circle in the Sand 


215 


She roused herself and went nearer 
the fire, but her curious eyes kept 
watch upon him. 

“ I have seen a ghost,” David said, in 
the same slow tones; “one I’ve long 
feared.” 

“What do you mean? You are 
ridiculous.” 

“I faced the ghost of myself, Olga, 
for a bitter hour to-night ” — and he 
drew her quickly to him — “ the ghost 
of what I must be in the future. It has 
no likeness to my past or present self. 
In making its acquaintance I suffered, 
but I had to accept it, and so must you, 
dear, so must you.” 

She paled under her rouge and her 
eyes were frightened. She let him lift 
her passive arms and kiss her tenderly, 
and still by her half-dazed glance he 
knew she was waiting for the confirma- 
tion of her fears. 

“ Olga, many fortunes were lost to-day. 
Men rich yesterday are poor to-night. 
My dear, my dear, I’m so sorry for you, 
so sorry to say it, — I am one of them.” 


2i6 


A Circle in the Sand 


“Poor?” The word came slowly, 
and she drew away, her brow bent like 
a child’s over a task. He could see the 
pulse going rapidly in her throat, but 
other than this she displayed no feeling. 

“So we are poor?” she said more 
emphatically. “ Will you tell me about 
it? I hardly think I realize it. It 
doesn’t seem possible.” 

She seated herself at the table and 
took her chin into the embrace of her 
palm. As she did so the diamonds on 
her wrists and fingers flashed under her 
eyes. She spread both hands on her 
knees and thoughtfully gazed at them. 
Poor, while these stones made her flesh 
radiant, and laces holding years of the 
workers’ lives rested under her fingers. 
It seemed impertinent, impossible. Yet 
she knew it was true, and in her own 
way faced the inevitable. 

“Tell me just what you mean,” she 
said with composure. “ What have 
you lost, and how ? ” 

He went into minute particulars so 
that no part of the truth should be 


A Circle in the Sand 


217 


hidden from her. He told her all as 
gently as possible, but held out no false 
hopes. It was an account of irremedi- 
able failure. 

“ And why did you go into these 
ventures, risk so much ? ” Olga asked, 
a judicial light in her eyes. 

‘‘In an effort to be too rich,” and 
folding his arms he nodded sadly at her. 
“ You remember the day at Newport,” 
he continued, “ when you begged me 
to leave nothing undone in trying to 
get back what Pd lost? I tried to keep 
my promise to you, Olga, and I failed.” 

“Do you mean there is nothing left? 
You own the paper?” she asked impa- 
tiently, and added, with something of 
desperation, “ don’t you own the 
paper ? ” 

“ No, I hold the controlling interest, 
but I must sell it.” 

“ Why?” 

“To pay debts — mine, yours. There 
are plenty of them.” 

“ And then ? ” 

“ Then we’ll have to learn courage.” 


2i8 


A Circle in the Sand 


“ I mean,” she said distinctly, ‘‘ what 
will you do after you let the ‘ Citizen ’ 
go? You haven’t any tools to sharpen; 
you haven’t any trade to fall back on, 
have you ? ” 

Instead of noticing the mockery of 
her voice he said simply: 

“ Oh, but I have ! I’ve thought it all 
out. Journalism is my trade. I’ll ask 
for the managing editor’s post when I 
sell out, and I’ll get it.” 

“ How interesting, David! What 
salary goes with that work ? ” 

“ Four thousand a year.” 

She received the words in silence 
and stared into the fire. David, smart- 
ing in the grip of an unshared sorrow, 
stood like an alien on his own hearth. 
Never had he read her so success- 
fully. How little he ever was to her — 
to-night, nothing. She had never loved 
anything in the world except herself. 
She never would. It was torment to ex- 
pect from her more than she could give. 
And yet she was so convincingly fair to 
believe her cold made nature a liar. 


A Circle in the Sand 


219 


As he watched her his heart grew 
heavier with a new defeat. She was 
his wife. At a moment like this they 
should not sit apart with unspoken 
thoughts. He no longer dwelt upon 
her selfishness. He put away the 
philosophy which counselled him to ex- 
pect nothing from her. He only knew 
that to make the dark future bearable 
they must face it hand in hand. He 
moved nearer to her, longing to make 
her meet his eyes and become one with 
him in soul during this hour of tempest. 
The impulse shrank back, wounded, 
when she looked up and laughed. 

Do you know what Fve been think- 
ing of ? ” she asked. Fve been keep- 
ing my first account book in fancy — 
just how we can live on your four 
thousand a year instead of fifty. I be- 
came quite familiar with the apartment 
we’ll have, the two maids, the one wine 
at dinner. Fve allowed myself about 
three really good gowns with silk lin- 
ings, and I could see you in the evening 
clothes of last year’s cut. Isn’t it funny, 


220 


A Circle in the Sand 


David ? Isn’t it all deadly funny ? ” 
She pressed her hands upon her excited 
eyes and laughed again. 

When David could speak, he closed 
his hand nervously on her shoulder and 
bent over her. 

“ Don’t say such things,” he said. 
“ Oh, don’t. This is an hour to bring 
us closer. Olga, it changes all our 
lives. It must change us, too. Can’t 
you see that.? Can’t you see how we 
must help each other now ? ” 

“ Of course, it will change every- 
thing,” she said quietly. 

‘‘ But I want it to change us, Olga,” 
he prayed. “ Listen, dear, listen! We’ll 
not have so much to crowd out love and 
the peace of home, without which no life 
is happy. Let us come nearer, dear, and 
be to each other now what we’ve never 
been, even in the early days of our mar- 
riage.” 

When David had felt himself master 
of his fate, a plea like this would have 
been impossible. But defeat had un- 
nerved and humbled him. Olga, what- 


A Circle in the Sand 


221 


ever she was, was all he had, and in 
broken pride he was weak enough to 
crave a tone, a look, rich in the felicity 
of a grief shared. He had not realized 
his loneliness until he permitted the 
want to take expression, but once un- 
leashed the desire for sympathy was 
like the grip of thirst. 

He flung himself on his knees beside 
her and held her close. 

“ Oh, Olga, my dear, come to me — 
won’t you ? You’ve seemed to need me 
little, you’ve seemed cold, yet you loved 
me in the beginning. Our life had a 
promise then it hasn’t kept. Can we 
find the best now, Olga, when other 
things are gone.^ Oh, can we find it?” 
he cried in bitter longing. 

The words thrilled through Olga. 
She felt an awe of him. His soul, it 
seemed, a stranger, looked through his 
miserable eyes, awaiting her reply. 

“ You loved me when you married 
me, Olga. My wife, you love me now. 
Tell me so, tell me so!” 

“ Why, yes, you foolish fellow, I love 


222 


A Circle in the Sand 


you, of course,” she said, gently touch- 
ing his face with her fingers. 

She glanced sideways at the clock. It 
was half-past nine. Fortunately she had 
dressed early, as the scene in which she 
was to appear would not begin until 
after ten. It would be necessary to go 
soon, yet with David in this unusual 
mood she feared to speak of the engage- 
ment which he evidently did not think 
of, despite her strange costume. 

His heavy eyes looked into hers. He 
had flung away his unimpeachable re- 
serve in humbly praying for her love, 
and Olga dimly realized how much he 
must have suffered before this possibility 
was reached. The thought even crossed 
her mind that it would be marvellous 
and might be an agreeable sensation to 
love a man as her husband desired to 
have her love him, so that, ruined, she 
might be his hope and exult in this, 
though everything else was lost. There 
were women in the world who loved 
men that way. She had often heard so. 

“You shall have what you want, my 


A Circle in the Sand 


223 


dear; yes, just as much as I can give 
you,” David whispered, his head on her 
shoulder, his lips on her throat. “ It 
won’t be so hard for me to do without 
things. I’ll work, too. In a few years I 
may make some lucky stroke — and 
then — life will go more easily. Just 
let’s stand by each other and be happy 
in spite of all.” 

“ In spite of all,” Olga echoed, an 
unnoticed frown passing over her brow 
when the clock struck the half hour 
after nine. 

‘‘ You didn’t know the suspense I 
suffered from, Olga,” David went on, 
finding it necessary to ease his reawak- 
ened pain by talking of it. “ There were 
days when I saw doom sidling to me 
and knew in my soul there was nothing 
to be done to keep it back — nights 
when I walked the floor forecasting the 
future. Why, when the terrible truth 
came upon me to-day it should have 
been no stranger. I had faced it many 
times in fancy. But I must have hoped 
without knowing it, for it was a blow.” 


224 


A Circle in the Sand 


She felt him shudder. He held her 
more closely and closed his eyes. 

“ I am so dazed and sick from it all,” 
he said, ‘‘ but now the worst is over, for 
I’ve told you, dear. I hated to tell you. 
It seemed a cruel thing to do. You 
don’t blame me, do you ? ” 

“ No, you couldn’t help it,” she said 
softly. 

He snatched at the words hopefully. 

“ I couldn’t,” he said, “ oh, indeed I 
couldn’t! I did all for the best. Oh, 
yes, I’m glad the telling is over, Olga! 
And we’ve made a compact, haven’t 
we? We’ll stand by each other and 
love each other better, won’t we ? ” 

“Yes, dear, yes.” 

“ Oh, I am glad! ” 

The last words were heavy with ex- 
haustion, and a hope animated Olga. 
She kissed him on the lips and said as 
if she were speaking to a child : 

“ You are worn out, dear.” 

“ It seems a year since I have slept,” 
said David. “ I could sleep now.” 

“ Suppose I call Robbins and tell him 


A Circle in the Sand 225 


to get your bath and bed ready. You 
need a good sound sleep to set you up. 
Shall I tell him?” 

“ No, no,” he said drowsily. “ Don’t 
go away from me.” 

“ But you should get some sleep, 
David. You look — awful.” 

“Let me stay here. You’re so soft 
and warm and sweet.” 

With a sigh he laid his head upon her 
knee and lifted her cool hand to his eye- 
lids. She passed the other very gently 
across his forehead and let the fingers 
move lightly in his hair. 

“ So ! ” he murmured. “ Oh, this is 
peace, peace, rest” — 

The room became silent. Olga looked 
from David’s haggard profile on her 
knee to the hands of the clock, stealing 
on relentlessly. If she left at ten sharp, 
she would be in time. The pupils of her 
eyes had grown large from excitement. 
A small, intensely scarlet spot burned 
unusually on her cheeks. She felt a 
desire to shriek, to get into the air at 
once. But with the remarkable purpose 


226 


A Circle in the Sand 


which had never failed her she kept the 
meaningless smile on her lips as she 
trailed her fingers over David’s fore- 
head. 

The stillness deepened. There were 
no sounds save the clock’s tick and 
David’s even breathing. Sometimes a 
cab rattled by. A laugh, a footstep, the 
distant call of a newsboy shouting news 
of the election, disturbed without dispel- 
ling the dead quiet. 

It seemed a weary time to Olga before 
David’s hold on her hand that shielded 
his eyes loosened. She watched his 
fingers slip down his cheek, his arm fall 
to his side. She bent over him and 
listened to the deep, weighted breaths 
telling of an exhausted body. Her task 
was done. Sleep, as inexorable as death, 
conquered him for the time. 

Olga gently lifted his head, and with 
no sound save the rustle of her crisp 
skirt slid from beneath the pressing 
shoulders. With the same caution she 
lowered his cheek to the leather hollow 
of the chair. She stood above him. 


A Circle in the Sand 


227 


holding her breath, waiting. There 
was nothing to fear. The face on 
which oblivion had set its mark stared 
up at her. She gave a short sigh 
of satisfaction, lifted gloves and cloak, 
and retreating backward reached the 
door. For a second she paused, a bit 
of brilliant coloring against the curtains. 
They closed after her, and David was 
alone. 

As if at that moment a meddlesome 
spirit had whispered the truth to him 
in a dream, he sighed deeply and throw- 
ing his arms upward made a pillow of 
them. Unconsciously his body had 
assumed the pose of one who had said 
good-by to hope. 


Chapter XXI 


FTER this David made no further 



attempts to win or soften Olga. 
When a servant awakened him hours 
later, he had accepted not only the 
knowledge of her desertion, but the re- 
iterations of his sick heart : “Useless! 
Hopeless 1 ” He would never cheat 
himself again. Olga had been wholly 
consistent with his estimate of her. 
The folly of hoping too much had been 


his. 


In the dark days following this ac- 
cepted realization of failure he was cold 
and silent. He was gentle with Olga, 
but he lived within himself, and his 
heart was like a stone. He could feel a 
pity for her occasional outbreaks of dis- 
appointment and rage, but a capability 
of actively regretting what he had lost 
seemed dead. The changes following 


A Circle in the Sand 229 

within two months found him com- 
plaisant. 

The town-house was sold, together 
with everything else, and for the time 
being, at Olga’s request, they made 
their home with her father. When 
the “ Citizen ” passed into other hands, 
David retained his editorial position 
as an employee. 

This latter sacrifice was a bitter one. 
Had he permitted himself to dwell upon 
it his hours at the familiar desk would 
have been tinctured with anguish. But 
he had a force in him, a grandeur of 
spirit, that made defeat imposing. Even 
Anne might have been deceived by his 
unchanged manner but for the one night 
of self-betrayal when she had stood on 
the bridge, silent, within reach of his 
hand. 

She went frequently to Dr. Ericsson’s 
during these trying days. Life there 
was like a creature which had received 
a blinding blow between the eyes and 
stood dazed, miserably uncertain on 
which path to advance. 


230 


A Circle in the Sand 


Mrs. Ericsson had a grievance against 
fate, but fate was too impersonal for 
attacks. It was more satisfying to pour 
her regrets and accusations into ears 
which heard. She was like a gnat, 
never stinging deep, never alighting on 
the same spot twice, yet stinging always. 

“ After all my hopes, my work, — 
look where we are ! ” she said once, 
her head nodding in nervous agitation, 
her furtive eyes glancing over Olga’s 
impassive face and restful body. “The 
nights I’ve lain awake, planning, hop- 
ing! You can’t say I left anything un- 
done. If ever a woman slaved to 
settle a daughter well ” — 

“You ought to be satisfied then,” 
said Olga amiably; “you have reason 
to pat yourself on the back. Why do 
you run on this way.? No one is 
blaming you.” 

“ Oh, if you’d only married old Rod- 
ney, or Baker! ” she said desperately. 
“ One a fossil and the other a beast! ” 
“Yes, that’s all very well, but they 
had money bound down solidly the 


A Circle in the Sand 


231 


way it is in England. I never han- 
kered for an American fortune. You 
must admit that. They are here to- 
day and gone to-morrow.” 

Her face worked for a moment in 
silence. If Olga had met with some 
sudden, frightful death her mother 
could not have contemplated her with 
more despairing anguish. Her folded 
hands expressed defeat. She had 
failed in her life-work. Pain, igno- 
miny and rancor were in the thought. 

^^Well, make the best of things, 
mamma.” 

Oh, don’t talk to me! Words are 
easy. The best — there is no best. 
It is all bad, horrible, maddening. 
What on earth was David Temple 
thinking about ? ” 

You don’t suppose he wanted beg- 
gary, do you ? ” asked Olga plaintively. 

Don’t be a fool, Olga. Can’t I 
speak ? Can’t I express an opinion 
without your flying at me ? ” 

Olga sighed, and relieved her impa- 
tience by kicking off her slipper. 


232 


A Circle in the Sand 


Mrs. Ericsson darted to the door, 
but paused for a last word. 

“ I should think David Temple 
would hide his head! Why, he has 
a way with him as if he were an em- 
peror with slaves to rush out at the 
crook of his finger. Such conceit! 
And yet he couldn’t take care of his 
money.” 

“ It requires more cleverness and 
foresight, my dear, to do that in these 
days than to be an emperor,” said Olga, 
as if touching on a subject in which 
she had no personal interest. 

“ Some day I’ll let him know my 
opinion of the whole business.” 

“ Have you done anything else but 
bestow your opinion on him and every 
one else, gratis, at all hours of the day 
and night, since our change of tune? 
Now, have you? Oh, try to be a little 
original, mamma! I wish you would.” 

Mrs. Ericsson glared at Olga’s faintly 
smiling face; but as if no words could 
express her wrath she skipped out and 
clapped the door loudly after her. 


A Circle in the Sand 


233 


Anne often wondered at David’s 
forbearance for Mrs. Ericsson’s most 
spiteful outbursts were levelled at him. 
Through him, in some way, by some- 
thing done or left undone, the money 
for which she had worked so long 
with Olga as a bait had been lost. 
Olga was the wife of a poor man. 
There was nothing worse to happen. 

In the meantime Anne found herself 
studying Olga. She mystified her more 
completely every day. Her spasms of 
despair, sharp and short-lived, were 
over now. For hours she would lie 
dreaming, her hands behind her head, 
the faintest smile sometimes fluttering 
around her lips. Except for a walk or 
drive, she seemed to enjoy letting the 
days brush by her. Dinner-hour often 
found her lounging in the loose gown 
of the morning. She never spoke of 
what she thought so constantly, nor 
what her plans were, if she had any. 
No one questioned her, David least of 
all. She showed no desire to found a 
home based upon their changed condi- 


234 


A Circle in the Sand 


tions. He was willing to wait until she 
had familiarized herself with her new 
future, and had roused herself to active 
interest in it. 

“ My dear, God lets some of us live 
too long,” Dr. Ericsson said to Anne 
one day as she leaned over his library 
chair. “ I am one of these. I can’t 
contemplate the lives which this one 
roof covers without a feeling of dismay 
for the future. Better for me if I didn’t 
live to see that which I must see, I fear. 
Oh, why weren’t you my child ? ” he 
said, with longing. ‘‘ You have a heart, 
a mind, real human blood goes through 
your arteries. You are a woman, not a 
finely articulated piece of flesh. You 
understand me.? I wish you were my 
child.” 

‘‘ Uncle, why do you say this.? You 
make me afraid of something. Has 
anything happened you haven’t told me 
about ? ” 

“ I’m afraid of Olga,” he said shortly. 

“Why? She seems not to care any 
more,” replied Anne, while she knew 


A Circle in the Sand 235 


he was about to express some of the 
fear she had felt without understand- 
ing- 

That’s just it: she seems not to care. 
B^t she does, and I know her.” He sat 
•v^th his eyes fixed on his veinous hand 
it thoughtfully tapped the table. ‘‘ At 
least when I say I know Olga I go too 
far. But I know the signs of storm in 
her. She is silent, thinking — of what? 
She writes a lot of letters. She always 
goes out alone. Pm afraid of her,” he 
said with a sigh. 

One gray December day near Christ- 
mas, Anne found herself at twilight in 
a street going eastward from Union 
square. She had come to purchase an 
etching which a few days before had 
attracted her in the window of a dusty 
basement shop; it was a study of a 
Greek girl in profile, leaning on the rail 
of a seat in an ancient theatre; flower- 
crowned, with fan of peacock’s feathers 
on her knee, she seemed pensively 
waiting for the first sonorous line of an 
Athenian chorus. The idea of possess- 


236 A Circle in the Sand 


ing it had stayed with Anne for 4 ys, 
and she felt happy as she watched 
the near-sighted old dealer wrappng 
it up. 

She was in no mood to hurry aw^y. 
In the shadowy place where she 
old age and dust were masters, a 
slow-tongued clock weightily recorded 
the ever-same moments, and on the 
street above the basement steps 
human tide flowed that scarcely had 
its equal for variety in any other city 
on earth. Waves of Bohemianism, 
vagabondism, beggary, mingled there, 
accompanied by a sweeping gamut 
of human sounds and coloring stolen 
from many lands. 

As she waited, her elbow on the 
counter, her eyes fell upon a woman 
descending the steps of a house op- 
posite. It was Olga. She walked 
hurriedly to a waiting cab. The 
air of the fine world about her, her 
radiant face seen in that unkeinpt, 
ill-flavored byway suggested a pris- 
matic bubble on a murky tide. 


A Circle in the Sand 


237 


Anne went toward the door, but 
paused as she saw a man, bare-headed, 
pen in hand, evidently a clerk, hurry 
down the steps of the house Olga had 
just left, and speak to her. She went 
back with him and vanished through 
the open doorway. 

“ She’s very beautiful — ay, isn’t 
she ? ” murmured the old dealer over 
Anne’s shoulder. “ There isn’t a face in 
all my portfolios to compare with hers. 
Those heads by Greuze, that woman 
by Botticelli, the Lady Hamilton por- 
trait with the scarf around her head, — 
why, even the originals of these, and 
I’ve seen them all, are nothing to her. 
You think so too, don’t you, miss? ” he 
asked, enthusiasm in his dim eyes. 

“You mean the lady who has just 
gone into that house again ? ” 

“ I’ve grown so that I watch for her 
coming,” he said. 

Anne’s heart sank. 

“ She comes to this street often ? ” 
“Two or three times a week.” He 
rubbed his dry palms together. “ Oh, I 


238 A Circle in the Sand 


am an admirer of beauty in any form, — 
man, woman, child, or horse or dog, — 
and that woman’s face makes me feel 
young again. She’s a beautiful being,” 
he concluded, with old-fashioned, awed 
respect. 

For the moment Anne could not 
speak. Her eyes rested on the cab 
waiting for Olga, as she pondered on 
the probable meaning of these secret 
visits, disclosed to her by chance. 
There was something sinister in them. 
But she must know more, she must 
know all. 

“ That looks like a business house of 
some sort,” she ventured. 

“ So it is, one of those theatrical 
buildings, full of managers, agents, or 
something. In fact, the whole street 
just bristles with them.” 

Anne made an unceremonious exit. 
Crossing the street just as Olga appeared 
again on the threshold, they came face 
to face under the street lamp in the 
gusty twilight, now almost gone. 

The faintest frown crossed Olga’s 


A Circle in the Sand 


239 


brow, the faintest color quivered under 
the white skin, and then retreated. Her 
voice betra3^ed her; she was a little 
breathless from surprise. 

“ I never dreamed of seeing you here, 
Anne,” she said. “ Will j'ou get in and 
come with me to dinner ? ” 

“ I can’t to-night. But if you have 
time you might take me home first. It 
wouldn’t be much out of j^our way.” 

‘‘ Of course not,” and she gave the 
order. 

Nothing was said, and the cab turned 
into Broadway. The silence was elo- 
quent with waiting. 

Olga felt Anne’s eyes wistfully con- 
templating her. “ Well, don’t keep 
your thoughts to yourself,” she said at 
last, with a nod and smile ; “ I’m sure 
they’ll prove interesting.” 

In response Anne slipped her arm 
around her waist and held her closety. 

“ I’ve no right to speak to you, Olga, 
about your affairs, but I must risk seem- 
ing presumptuous,” she said. “ By acci- 
dent I saw 3'ou come out of that house 


240 


A Circle in the Sand 


to-day. The man in the picture-shop 
told me you go there often. I know, 
too, the meaning of your visits. Prom- 
ise me you’ll give up this mad idea. 
Promise me, Olga.” 

A smile rippled over Olga’s face. 

“ Why, you’re white and trembling, 
you silly, passionate Anne. What mad 
idea? What in the world, you foolish 
girl, do you mean ? ” 

“ Don’t go on the stage. Don’t, my 
dear, don’t. It would crush David’s 
pride to the dust to have you go. Can’t 
you see ? Why, the world would think 
he had sent you to retrieve his fortunes ; 
it would seem as if his ill-luck had 
forced you there. No proud man could 
endure the position ” — 

‘‘ David ! David ! Always David ! ” 
and Olga looked at her sharply. “ Is 
there no one in the world to be consid- 
ered but him ? ” 

“ Your mother. You know how she 
would suffer.” 

In her earnestness she laid her cheek 
against Olga’s. 


A Circle in the Sand 


241 


Will you listen to me — will you ? 

Olga withdrew Anne’s arm, but held 
her fingers in a light clasp. 

^^You are such a woman, Anne ! 
How you leap to conclusions ! My 
dear, does it follow that I am going on 
the stage because to break the monotony 
of such days as I have now I go occa- 
sionally to hear a manager make tempt- 
ing offers which I haven’t the smallest 
intention of accepting?” and she settled 
herself more cosily against Anne. I’m 
a vain creature. There’s no use ignor- 
ing the truth. It’s a comfort to hear 
myself called a genius, a modern Peg 
Woffington, and all the rest. It gives a 
sense of power — it’s refreshing. If I 
cheat myself and cheat the manager, it’s 
a pleasure to me and seriously hurts no 
one.” 

But suppose in the end these people 
might persuade you, Olga, might dazzle 
you ? ” 

My dear, I’m not a fool. To step 
from society to the professional stage 
would be like challenging every narrow- 


242 


A Circle in the Sand 


minded person to hiss at you. You 
might be gifted of God, but no one 
would believe it, and every critic would 
endeavor to be witty at your expense.” 

She nodded and looked very wise. 

“ No, Pve gotten over the madness I 
once had. Experience has made me 
wise, sadder too. I see my future very 
clearly before me, and I’m gradually 
drifting to it, although I couldn’t accept 
it at first. I shall have to chasten my 
desires, cultivate a penchant for a com- 
fortable, quiet life on a few thousand 
a year with David, found a family, and 
take to bonnets permanently. Oh, I 
see it,” she said, with semi-humorous 
pathos. “ I am becoming resigned 
quietly, in my own fashion. This visit 
to Zerand, the great business Napoleon 
of the drama, was, I promise you, my 
last tangential flight after a bit of ex- 
citement.” 

She snapped her fingers like a fare- 
well to fancy and began to talk of other 
things. Anne felt a sensation of relief. 
After all, it was not as bad as she had 


A Circle in the Sand 


243 


feared. Olga had simply been feeding 
her vanity on crumbs. She could 
understand the pleasure it was to her 
fanciful, shallow mind to steal away to 
these private interviews in a back street, 
hear herself extolled as a genius, and 
listen to highly colored plans she dared 
not countenance. But a little while ago 
she had paid extravagantly for glitter 
and show of first-class quality: to have 
her beauty admired in a theatrical office 
by a puffy-eyed manager, and feel a 
ghostly wave of the lost excitement, 
was evidently but the survival of the 
old instincts under forlorn conditions. 

Olga’s kiss at parting was childish 
and tender. 

“ Never breathe that you discovered 
my silly dissipation,” she said, adding 
with a laugh, ‘‘ David would be angry 
with me — shocked; and you know his 
emotions must be preserved in tissue 
paper, so they retain the gloss.” 

The door of the cab closed sharply, 
the lamplight flickered on her white 
brow and vivid lips as she looked back. 


A Circle in the Sand 


244 

It seemed to Anne that just for a breath’s 
space a look of defiance and determi- 
nation crossed her eyes. It was surely 
fancy. 

During several weeks following, life 
at the old house took on a more cheer- 
ful color. 

Olga ceased dreaming and seemed 
satisfied. She was often the gayest of 
companions and assumed a whimsical 
tyranny over David vastly preferable to 
her settled indiiference. Sometimes 
during these days her eyes had an al- 
most celestial light in them, her smile 
was confiding. 

David almost dared hope again for 
that which he had decided could never 
be his. . He found himself wondering 
if she could be content with the little 
he now had, after allj if in her own 
fashion, which never could be antici- 
pated, she would come to help him, 
love him a little. He put the thought 
from him, yet knew he was hoping; and 
he waited. 

In January, in the busy morning hours. 


A Circle in the Sand 245 


a note was brought to Anne at the office. 
It was from David and very short : 

I hate to send you this, dear Anne. You have 
been drawn into my misfortunes too much of 
late. Forgive it, but I must come to you. Olga 
has gone away at the head of a theatrical company. 
The blow has prostrated Mrs. Ericsson, and she’s 
dangerously ill. Can you go to the house when 
you get this? 

Anne sat with the letter in her hands, 
conscious only of unbelief in the words 
written there. The woman who had 
done this thing, having smiled and lied 
harmoniously as she made her unhur- 
ried way to the goal of her desires, be- 
came suddenly hateful. Anne could not 
judge of her by herself or measure her 
by familiar rules. Comprehension was 
beyond her. 

“ A liar!” she said aloud. “ A cruel 
liar!” 

The noisy streets might have been a 
desert for all heed she took of them as 
she hurried to Dr. Ericsson’s. She was 
absorbed in her thoughts. She knew 
how the papers would seize on this de- 


246 A Circle in the Sand 


parture and flourish the real and imagi- 
nary details of David’s private life under 
big headings ; how ably Olga would assist 
them. Soon her face would stare from 
every shop-window and decorate to- 
bacco signs; she would be exploited 
by every bombastic venture dear to 
the managerial heart. She was not one 
to succeed by the sovereignty of talent 
alone, and retire from the limelight to 
privacy as exclusive as a queen’s. In- 
stinct and education made her delight 
in the clamor of brass. Her mother 
had been eager to advertise her socially: 
she would trumpet herself profession- 
ally. 

When Anne entered her aunt’s bed- 
room, a pang of remorse shot through 
her heart. Mrs. Ericsson’s nervous 
vigilance and activity had often irri- 
tated her, but now her outflung arms ex- 
pressed apathy, her small shrunken face 
was almost hidden in the bulging pillow, 
and her eyes stared at one spot. She 
was in a sort of syncope. It seemed bru- 
tal that all the physician’s efforts were to 


A Circle in the Sand 247 

bring her out of it to a realization of 
Olga’s decisive arrow, which had struck 
at and levelled even the ruins of her 
hopes. 

It was dusk before the nurse came 
and Anne could leave the sick-room. 
She was tired and her head ached. In 
the hall she met a maid and asked for 
a cup of tea. 

‘‘ Shall I fetch it to the doctor’s study, 
Miss Garrick? Mr. Temple’s there 
now. He’s just got in. Perhaps he’d 
like a cup of tea too.” 

“Yes, and Dr. Ericsson — hasn’t he 
come back yet?” 

“ Not yet, miss.” 

There was not a sound in the house 
as Anne went down the stairs, nor were 
the lamps yet lit in the study, but there 
was bright firelight coming out in a 
broadening track across the open door- 
way. When she reached the threshold 
she saw David sitting on the edge of the 
big table, his hands in his pockets, his 
eyes on the fire. 

She reached his side before he was 


248 A Circle in the Sand 


aware of her presence; when he turned 
and saw the firelight making her dark 
eyes still more mysterious, sending its 
flickerings over her sensitive lips and 
the dusk masses of her hair, a look of 
pain changed his face. Truth and sym- 
pathy were in her full glance. It was 
long since a woman’s eyes had looked at 
him so. 

‘‘You’re so pale,” he said gently, 
taking her hand. “ I’m sorry I had to 
send for you, Anne, but Mrs. Ericsson 
needs a woman near her. Don’t you 
think so ? But as I told you in my note, 
I feel like a brute dragging you into 
this wretched house.” 

His fingers loosened their hold, and 
he walked into the shadows and out 
again. There was a look of endurance 
on his face. He had never seemed 
braver, and never had his unlikeness to 
Donald stood out more clearly. She 
could always yearn over the misfort- 
unes of the latter. For David she could 
feel only a sad sense of wrath against 
the inevitable crushing him. He was 


A Circle in the Sand 


249 

a man to dominate his sorrows and carry 
them unshared. 

“ How is Mrs. Ericsson ? ” he asked. 

“ Still unconscious. It’s so strange to 
see her lying quiet.” 

“ It’s just as well,” he said sadly. 
“ Bitterness is waiting for her, poor 
woman ! ” Then he added abruptly, 
“Have you seen the papers to-night.^” 

“No; is it” — 

“ Yes, it’s everywhere. They all have 
it, except, of course, the ‘ Citizen.’ It 
hurts me so, Anne ! Oh, I’m a fool to 
let it, I know that! I’ll have to endure 
more sensational reading by and by, no 
doubt.” 

Anne sat silent, and he turned to her 
again. 

“ Haven’t you heard the story, Anne ? 
It’s a pity,” he said, with a dismal smile. 
“ You have been cheated out of a tooth- 
some morsel of gossip. It’s the dinner 
topic at plenty of houses to-night.” 

He sat down on the table-edge again 
and leaned forward, his hands on his 
knees. 


250 


A Circle in the Sand 


“ Olga went away three days ago to 
pay a visit to one of her former inti- 
mates. She was to be gone a week. 
Last night I received a letter from her. 
It was as serene as her eyes. She was 
going, she said, to make a great name 
for herself on the stage. The company 
she headed would play only old come- 
dies, was going straight to San Fran- 
cisco, from there to Australia, and would 
appear next fall in New York. If I 
wished, she would in this way set me 
on my feet again. This was her naive 
suggestion. If I objected, some Western 
court would sever our bonds on the 
simple charge of desertion. But she 
must persist under any circumstances 
in using my name merely because of 
its business value, since she had already 
made it famous in society and on the 
amateur stage. Probably this was the 
only time she viewed the loss of my 
fortune complacently, since it would 
help to give a commercial strength to 
the name Temple when seen in capitals 
on a bill-board. T emple ! — the name of 


A Circle in the Sand 


251 


the beauty stepping from the drawing- 
room to the footlights, the name of the 
man who went down under the thunder- 
bolt of ruin! Why, there’s meat for a 
reporter in the two syllables. Don’t 
you think so ? They may even illustrate 
me,” he laughed, his eyes bright with 
contempt. “ The letter ended with the 
politic hope that I’d be sensible and not 
kick up a row. Well, I haven’t. I’ve 
been sensible. But I spent part of to- 
day in becoming better acquainted with 
my wife. I was curious to know how 
she developed her plans. I’ll tell you 
what I learned.” 

He stood up before Anne and struck 
his finger with emphasis on his open 
palm. 

‘‘ From the hour she knew of my 
failure she has covertly, determinedly, 
bent every effort toward the taking of 
this step. The manager would not star 
her without heavy security. Then Olga 
showed what resources lay within her. 
Smedley Joyce and a few others among 
her old followers have at her sugges- 


252 A Circle in the Sand 

tion backed the undertaking as a good 
business venture. They knew all about 
it. And I, ignorant, blind, sat opposite 
Joyce at the Harvard alumni dinner 
the other night. I didn’t dream I was 
facing my wife’s ‘ angel.’ You don’t 
know what that means. Neither did I 
until to-day. The man who backs a 
play earns that heavenly title. Smedley 
Joyce is at present an ‘ angel,’ though a 
stout one, I grant.” 

. “ What will you do ? ” asked Anne 
heavily. “Will you bring her back.^ 
You might perhaps.” 

“ I shall not try,” he said clearly. 
“ I’ll do nothing but endeavor to live as 
if I’d never seen her. It won’t be hard.” 
A dark look crossed his face. “ If 
circumstances could by any possibility 
arise in the future tending to soften me 
toward her, to make me a fool again, I’d 
only have to think of this one thing: 
her gentlest mood, most impulsive ca- 
ress, and her only promise for a happy 
future home together were given the 
night before she went away, when her 


A Circle in the Sand 


253 


railroad ticket was in her purse. This 
thought would make me a stone.” 

Anne watched him thoughtfully and 
understood him. Olga had practised a 
cheap deception from first to last. Her 
unmasking had only aroused disgust 
and bitterness in him. To feel either 
grief or hate for anything as gaudily 
false as this woman would be like play- 
ing some of the most despairing strains 
in “ Faust” on a penny trumpet. 

The maid entered with tea, and they 
had it in the firelight while the shadows 
played between them. Anne’s heart 
beat painfully and hard. David began 
to feel a peace enfold him. This was 
their first talk alone since the winter 
night when he had told her of his love 
for Olga. Then all the tenor of his ecs- 
tatic confidence was, love her.” To- 
night his embittered spirit had voiced 
a different truth : She has gone, lei- 
surely and coldly, out of my life forever. 
She brought nothing into it: she takes 
nothing away.” 


Chapter XXII 


NNE had entered Dr. Ericsson’s 



Jr\. house as a member of the family. 
No one had urged her to go, but she 
had come to see the necessity of it. 
After a long illness her aunt had come 
back to only a quiescent consciousness 
of life and with body partly paralyzed. 
The reins of government had fallen 
from her hands forever, and a woman 
was needed by her side. Anne did not 
renounce work to be with her, but she 
condensed it into as few hours as possi- 
ble and spent her leisure in the Waverly- 
place house. 

She had found it hard to be unselfish 
and go, particularly when she knew 
David had insisted on remaining there 
and assuming the duties of a son toward 
the old man he loved and the woman he 
pitied. She had struggled with her own 


A Circle in the Sand 


255 


heart and had beaten down her pride 
only after a hard fight. Daily compan- 
ionship with David Temple was the 
last thing in the world she desired, and 
she loved her free life as she loved the 
sunlight. But there was nothing else to 
be done. Mrs. Ericsson’s apath}^ was a 
plea mingling with the voice within her 
which commanded in the name of duty. 
If only selfishly, for her own peace, she 
obeyed it. 

More than a year had passed. It had 
grown to be a right and natural thing to 
Anne to meet David at breakfast and 
pour coffee for him, to watch for his 
coming at night. At first this had 
seemed unbearable, impossible, but 
habit is coercing and inflexible and 
women are adaptable. She even man- 
aged not to be discontented, though she 
lived in a dull atmosphere, in a quiet 
house where three disappointed lives 
drifted on. 

Olga’s name was never heard. Mrs. 
Ericsson, calm, almost mindless, sat all 
day by the window of her room, her 


256 A Circle in the Sand 


eyes fastened on the street. She seemed 
watching for some onej she always 
looked out. The attitude had become 
mechanical long after a realization of the 
reason for it had died. It was the expres- 
sion of the passive desire in her maimed 
brain to watch for Olga’s return. David 
worked harder than ever, apparently 
unchanged save that he was more ret- 
icent. Dr. Ericsson’s practice was but 
a name, and he looked an aged man. 

As was expected, the newspapers 
had made a sensational heroine of Olga. 
Soon after her departure photographs 
of her from San Francisco had found 
their way to Broadway windows and 
reported interviews with her had been 
wired to New York papers. These 
were highly colored and probably false. 
Gossip tossed her name like a shuttle- 
cock from one to another. 

As an actress she had not met with 
emphatic success. At first people went 
to see her in great crowds because 
she was the well-known Eastern belle; 
they went a second time because she 


A Circle in the Sand 


257 


was a beauty. Soon her vogue lessened. 
It is one thing to be a rich woman dab- 
bling in a profession, another thing to 
enter the market and strive with prac- 
tical workers. The criticism aroused 
was different too. Olga had found this 
out. She had been too ambitious. 
With all her natural talent she was still 
unformed, really fit only to interpret 
the rudiments of her art, and what had 
seemed praise-compelling in fashion- 
able New York, where gloved hands 
awarded the affirmation of success, 
was merely promising, sometimes im- 
pertinent, where people paid money at 
a box-office to see a stranger. 

Many things that must have stung 
David were said of her in every paper 
except his own. But even to Anne’s 
eyes he was impassive. He went into 
the world, particularly the society of 
men and clubs, as much as formerly, 
and those who found pleasure in dis- 
cussing his affairs behind his back were 
careful to read the hint in his attitude, 
and offer neither sympathy nor advice. 


258 A Circle in the Sand 

May was almost spent. At the cor- 
ners of the streets barrel organs churned 
antiquated love-songs; sparrows built 
their nests in the weakly budding trees ; 
wagons heaped with growing plants 
halted at area gates; the crannies be- 
tween the paving-stones held spears of 
grass as strengthless as the down on a 
boy’s lip. 

On a warm night Anne took a han- 
som to one of the big studio buildings 
on upper Fifth avenue, to attend a din- 
ner given by a celebrated artist just 
over from Paris on a visit to his native 
land. 

A brilliant fourteen sat down at the 
round table, and she found herself be- 
tween the athletic young novelist who 
took her in and an Australian capitalist. 
As dessert came on there was a lull in 
the entertaining nonsense and piquant 
discussions between herself and her 
dinner companion, and she listened to 
the scraps of conversation around her. 
The name “Temple,” spoken in soft, 
amused, scornful accents by the Austra- 


A Circle in the Sand 


259 


lian, reached her. His big, bald head 
was turned from her, but owing to his 
slow, distinct utterance she could hear 
almost every word. He was speaking 
of Olga. 

“ They fade quickly, those very pale 
blondes, don’t you think ? Excitement 
and what not have spoiled a very pretty 
woman in Mrs. Temple. A shocking 
failure she is, too. In Melbourne, 
where she tried to force Parthenia 
down our throats, I assure you she was 
laughed at. A playful little kitten style 
of woman in a comedy is as much as she 
should have attempted. These people 
never can measure their ability. After 
years and years of work and work she 
might have attempted strong parts, but. 
Lord, not now ! ” 

“ She was considered a great beauty 
here and a very good actress,” came 
from the listener on the other side. 

“ Of course, of course. I fancy when 
she had everything her own way and 
didn’t have to fag she was healthy and 
probably a beauty. But she’s down on 


260 


A Circle in the Sand 


her luck. She’s anaemic, too, or that 
dead-white glassy skin of hers means 
arsenic ” — 

“ Oh, I assure you, no ! She was 
always as white as milk.” 

“ Then she’s organically unsound, 
bloodless, and she hasn’t the stuff in 
her to last. They say she has hys- 
terics like insanity, and her temper’s 
frightful. I know for a positive fact 
she boxed her coachman’s ears in Mel- 
bourne.” 

“ Really ! And she always seemed 
so amiable ! I can’t fancy her even 
disturbed.” 

“ Disappointment, my dear lady, is 
like a blistering sun on the sweetest 
milk — sure to turn it sour, eh ?” 

“ She appeared in London last month. 
The reports say she was a failure 
there.” 

“ One hasn’t much ‘ go ’ playing a 
losing game. It will be a good thing 
for the society woman who talks and 
thinks nothing but stage, stage, stage, 
to remember one thing — the vast dif- 


A Circle in the Sand 


261 


ference between playing to the big, 
cold-hearted public, whose eyes are all 
strabismus, and playing to Tom, Dick, 
and Harry, with whom she has dined, 
flirted, or had five o’clock tea. The 
public is a bull-dog. If it doesn’t get 
what it wants or expects, it bites.” 

During her drive home the words 
she had heard stayed with Anne, but 
insisted on remaining beyond her be- 
lief. Olga pitied, ridiculed, faded, — 
she who had been so secure, so envied! 
And but little more than a year had 
gone ! 

She sat with wide, speculative eyes, 
watching the sentinel-like lamps flash 
past, and tried to picture Olga as she 
had been described. Failure had come 
and bitterness had followed. Exhaust- 
ing travel, nervous days and nights, and 
the pains of wounded vanity had done 
the rest. Prosperity and confidence in 
herself had been the qualities forming 
a foundation for Olga’s winning un- 
concern and amiability. With defeat, 
with struggle, the real nature had peered 


262 


A Circle in the Sand 


like an ugly face from behind a mask 
and left her a bitter, turbulent woman, 
a logical development of the peevish 
child who scratched. 

The house was wrapped in slumber 
when Anne reached it. But she knew 
by the light left burning in the library 
that David had not yet returned. For 
several days she had only seen him in 
the mornings. 

She went to her aunt’s room to see 
if she slept or needed anything. The 
light burned low and made big shad- 
ows among the bed-curtains, the air 
was sweet with the odor of lilacs, and 
a cool wind swept like a sigh through 
the place. 

Anne tiptoed to the bed and looked 
at the small, huddled figure, the hands 
lying palms upward on the counter- 
pane, the face turned sideways, resting 
on the shoulder in the attitude of 
watching which had become habitual. 
She brushed a lock of hair from the 
wet brow, placed the big fan, which 
had fallen, within reach of her hand, 


A Circle in the Sand 263 


and crept out, Olga’s face haunting 
her. 

A few nights later a letter came to 
Anne by the last post. It was from 
London, and she recognized Olga’s 
handwriting. It was the first she had 
received since her departure. She 
carried it up to her own room, and 
even after the door was closed she 
hesitated with it in her hand, fearing 
what was written within it. 

When she drew it from its cover she 
read these words: 

My dear Anne : You’ve had very hard 
thoughts of me, I know. You never wrote to 
me yourself, and in the brief notes received from 
father there was no message from you. How- 
ever, I’m going to ask you to let my humiliation 
brush all these thoughts from your mind, for I am 
humiliated, and it is bitter to say it, I can tell 
you. I’ve failed. There’s no use mincing words 
or beating around the bush. I’ve failed, and I’m 
ill, very ill. Nobody seems to know just what’s 
the matter with me, and I don’t much care. I’m 
probably dying, and that doesn’t matter either. 
But just now I’ve a longing to go home. I have 
heart enough for that. I know mamma is all 
broken up, but still I keep thinking how pleasant 


264 A Circle in the Sand 


it would be to lie in my cool green room and 
have her fuss around me as she used to do when I 
had a cold or a headache. There’s a comfort in 
this, and in feeling that no matter what I’ve done 
I do belong to mamma and she’d never give me 
the cold shoulder. 

But then, as I said, I hear she’s not as she was, 
and perhaps no one else would care to see me at 
home. Do you think David would take me back? 
I don’t expect his forgiveness, nor that he could 
the least bit regard me as he used to do. But he 
may forgive me enough to let me go back to my 
home, which is his now. I want to go home and 
rest, and this is all I care about. Will you ask 
him, Anne, and write to me? I’m so tired of 
myself. You never can know just how utterly sick 
and weary I am. My face in the glass frightens 
me, it is so lean and bloodless. I long so to rest, 
to fall asleep in a safe place and not think or care 
what the end may be. You won’t believe it, 
maybe, but I’m not a bit pretty any more. I’ve 
gone off horribly. At first I minded, but I don’t 
now. Nothing seems to matter. I’ve had my 
cake and eaten it. It disappointed me, and 
there’s no one to blame but myself. Cable me 
here at The Langham,” and if I may return I’ll 
go home at once. I wish now I’d never gone on 
the stage. But what’s the use of crying when the 
harm’s done ? Do try and think kindly of me and 
welcome me back. 


Olga. 


A Circle in the Sand 265 


Anne read the letter twice, and the 
picture her fancy conjured of Olga made 
a pain rise in her throat. Of course she 
would speak to David as soon as he 
came in, and of course Olga would 
return. The pity in David’s heart 
would let him receive back this wasted, 
disappointed woman, and she would 
scarcely remind him of the splendid 
beauty who had failed him when he 
needed her most. Soon Olga would be 
home, creeping like the ghost of herself 
through the familiar rooms. Her soft 
step would be heard on the stairs. She 
might be changed in soul and heart, 
and in her weakness and defeat be to 
David what he had longed to make her. 

As Anne stood with the letter in her 
hand she heard the street door close 
softly. Without giving herself time to 
think what she should say she went 
down to the study. The full gaslight 
poured on David as he stood by the 
table, his chin lowered. His face was 
more than fatigued: it was pinched, and 
she could see a moisture on his fore- 


266 


A Circle in the Sand 


head. He looked up, but did not greet 
her, or move. 

“ David,” she said uncertainly, ‘‘ don’t 
be angry, but I must speak to you of 
Olga.” 

He drew in his breath and closed his 
eyes. 

“ Ah, you know, then, — you know ! ” 
he murmured. 

“ I’ve a letter from her.” And she 
held it out to him. “ She’s very ill and 
wants to come home. She wants me 
to ask” — 

He seized the hand that held the 
letter and looked suffering, forbidding. 

“ Y ou’ll let her come home here, won't 
you? I was sure you would. She 
seems to want nothing else; she doesn’t 
expect or ask for forgiveness ” — 

“ Oh, hush ! ” he said wildly and with 
difficulty, opening his other hand and 
showing a crushed cablegram. ‘‘ I can 
never tell her now that I would have 
pitied her, yes, even forgiven her the 
wrong she did me, for she’s dead, Anne. 
You can read it there. She died to-day.” 


Chapter XXIII 


I T was a wild night. An icy torrent 
of rain was tossed by a wind which 
seemed sent to wail over the world. 

The study where David Temple sat 
was as cheery as firelight and shaded 
lamplight could make it. He was con- 
scious only vaguely of the sputtering 
coals sending up fuchsia-tinted sparks, 
and of the furious rain shaking the 
window casings, while his thoughts 
wandered into dreams of other places 
and times. 

Save for the servants, he now lived 
alone in the old Waverly-place house. 
It was strange to sit there on this Jan- 
uary-night and hear neither voice nor 
footstep, to find himself listening gladly 
to the clock’s light strokes, feeling de- 
pressed when the last vibration had 
whirred into the silence. 

267 


268 


A Circle in the Sand 


Olga had been dead six months. He 
thought of her grave in Greenwood ; her 
mother’s but the reach of an arm from 
her — the finale to a story in those two 
mounds; of Dr. Ericsson, gone to spend 
his last years in Sweden, in the house 
where he was born, and which had come 
to him a few months before through the 
death of a brother; of Anne, but lately 
returned to her old rooms, her life un- 
changed. 

David rose and paced the room, a line 
creeping down between his brows. The 
silence seemed speaking to him of Anne 
to-night. She had been the star of his 
life. He freely acknowledged it. She 
had drained much of the bitterness from 
his adversities. No man could have had 
a more satisfying companion, a better 
friend. These blessings had been his, 
though they were neither his right nor 
his reward. 

He wanted to tell her this and more. 
She had been ill, the result of a heavy 
cold, and on the morrow would leave 
for a holiday in the South. Something 


A Circle in the Sand 269 


urged him not to let her leave New 
York without expressing what she had 
no doubt come to realize — how much 
her going from under the same roof had 
taken from his life. 

“Yes, I miss her,” he said in con- 
centrated accents as he stood still and 
listened, with the subtler inner hearing, 
to the silence wrapping the house. 

He stepped into the hall. The gas 
was burning brightly, but the curve of 
the high staircase was lost in shadow. 
He thought of how often Anne had 
come down, humming a song. But a 
few nights before Dr. Ericsson’s de- 
parture he remembered her hurrying 
back half way to say good-night to him, 
and how her long braid of hair becom- 
ing loosened had swept his cheek like a 
silky lash. It had been an incident for 
a laugh then, but now the memory of 
her tress’s touch, her hand, her eyes, 
made him resent his loneliness. 

He went into the drawing-room, but 
came out of it quickly. It was there 
among the teacups and in the firelight 


270 


A Circle in the Sand 


he had asked Olga to be his wife, there 
her coffin had stood. It was a hated 
room. Ghosts were its tenantry. 

Going back to the study fire, he lighted 
a cigar. The past unrolled itself before 
him, and he tried to forecast the years to 
come. The deductions from his rea- 
soning were as clear and strong as if 
spoken by a bell-like voice beside him. 

Loneliness was horrible. It turned 
a man into an intellectual machine, 
warped his nature, put him out of touch 
with his kind. Once he had been proud 
to stand quite alone, absolute master of 
every heart-throb and every moment, 
but he had tasted the joy of a sympa- 
thetic woman’s daily companionship, 
and was unfitted forever for a self-con- 
tained life where the ego was supreme 
and ambition the ruling passion. 

If he had learned this from the year 
of life under one roof with Anne, how 
much deeper the lesson would be if she 
had been his wife! If Anne had been 
his wife I The words filled him with 
passive regret as he lifted her photo- 


A Circle in the Sand 


271 


graph from the mantel and looked into 
the eyes which seemed even there to 
question and comfort him. 

If he could have loved her, if he could 
but love her now, as any man, the 
greatest, might be proud to love her! 
His feeling for her was very near the 
richest his nature could produce. Gen- 
tleness and sympathy were in it, pride 
and reverence. It but lacked passion 
to make it perfect. This he had known 
for one woman, an unreasoning, intoxi- 
cating love, without substance or depth. 
Anne did not arouse it in him, he could 
not add it to the mixed longings which 
made her necessary to him ; very prob- 
ably it would forever escape him. 

Need this prevent him from asking 
her to be his wife, from making her 
happy should she give herself to him ? 
What he had to offer was better far 
than what he lacked — the fever of pas- 
sion which could thrive in the most 
meagre natures; the most evanescent, 
the basest ingredient of all in love. 
.Anne could be dear and necessary to 


272 


A Circle in the Sand 


him without this madness which could 
never come again to him. Without 
being in love with her, he loved her 
tenderly. Was there as much impor- 
tance in the subtle difference as ro- 
mantic minds supposed ? 

His head was cool, his heart craving 
sympathy. He desired urgently not so 
much Anne’s kiss as her companion- 
ship, not to give himself into her 
power and lose himself in her, but to 
know the happiness of her dependence 
on him. 

When his cigar was finished, he 
went back to the table and looked 
down at the letter he had begun to 
her. 

“ My dear Anne.” The stereotyped 
words were so wholly inadequate they 
irritated him. He crushed the paper 
in his palm and flung it into the fire. 
He would go to her. As he took his 
overcoat and hat from the stand in the 
hall he muttered impatiently : 

“ What shall I say to her ? How 
can I put it to her ? ” 


A Circle in the Sand 273 


In a few moments he was on the 
street, making his way against the 
wind to her rooms on Washington 
place, where some of the most con- 
tented hours of his life had been 
spent. 

The flames in the lamps, reflected in 
the drenched pavements, danced under 
his feet; the crossed streets lay in stormy 
shadow; icicles on trees and palings 
clinked in the rush of the freezing rain ; 
once the numbed face of a beggar 
looked at him ; once a stray dog 
pressed lonesomely against him as he 
strode on. The world seemed full of 
mist and pain, but there was peace in 
his soul, and when he saw the firelight 
on Anne’s windows he felt almost 
ashamed of the sense of well-being 
which came to him while others in 
the world suffered. 

Anne opened the door of the sitting- 
room herself. She was all in white, 
of some thick, heavy-falling material, 
and behind her dark head the room 
swam in rosy gloom. The air was 


274 Circle in the Sand 


heavy with the perfume of roses. He 
seemed entering a garden with Anne 
by his side, pale from her illness and 
with dovelike eyes. 

A soul-wave of mutual comprehen- 
sion made him feel his coming had been 
half-expected and that she was glad. 
When he had made her sit again in the 
low arm-chair and had arranged the silk 
pillow at a comfortable angle for her 
head, he sat down beside her and looked 
at her earnestly. 

“ Almost well again, aren’t you ? ” he 
said gladly. “ Your face is getting back 
its rounded look, and soon you won’t 
get a single bit of sympathy.” 

“ I don’t deserve any,” Anne said, an 
excited catch in her voice. “ I assure 
you, reposing on this pillow in a sort of 
Cleopatra attitude, I feel quite a fraud. 
I’d like to h&.ve gone for a tramp in this 
wild rain. Listen to it. How it sighs 
and sputters, and then it comes on with 
a sweep ! ” 

While the words left her lips she was 
thinking that it was strange and troub- 


A Circle in the Sand 


275 


ling to be there alone with David, the 
firelight on his near face, while beyond 
the close-curtained windows the storm 
called and called to them in vain. 

She knew why he had come. Her 
intuitive mind leaping to conclusions 
told her that words having no kinship 
to farewell were faltering on his lips. 
She felt a sudden uneasiness and ex- 
citement. The beating of her heart 
was painful. 

You’ll be gone a month? ” 

At least a month,” she nodded. 

Fm revelling in the thought of get- 
ting back to summer and for the first 
time smelling a lily-field in bloom. The 
word ‘ Bermuda ’ has an exotic sound 
to me. Have you ever been there?” 

No,” he said absently, and, leaning 
nearer, said earnestly, “ Fll miss you so, 
Anne.” 

His fingers touched hers, and she met 
his eyes. They were grave and domi- 
nant. 

“ And how Fve missed you these last 
five weeks! ” he went on. “ I find my- 


276 A Circle in the Sand 


self listening for your step, for memory 
plays me cruel tricks. But you are 
gone, and I have to learn all over the 
lesson of philosophy. I’ve grown to 
hate the place. Just to look at the 
corner of the table where you used to 
pour coffee for me makes me blue.” 

As he spoke quietly and half confid- 
ingly Anne became aware of a disap- 
pointment in herself. He was going to 
say more. What had been her dearest 
dream was going to intensify itself into 
a certainty to-night, and yet she was 
aware that if some interruption had 
come and David had been forced to 
leave her with the words unsaid, she 
would have been relieved. 

“Yes, I’ve missed you, and I will 
miss you,” he continued, and lifted her 
hand to his lips. “Does it matter at 
all to you? Does it matter that you 
are very dear to me, and I want you 
always? Will you be my wife, Anne? 
Will you?” 

A sense of coming triumph filled 
David as he spoke. He was aware he 


A Circle in the Sand 277 


had not feared failure. During the last 
year Anne had so let herself be knitted 
with his life it seemed only a natural 
conclusion that he was as necessary to 
her as she to him. Besides, he had 
never failed in anything save his mar- 
riage, and without egotism he did not 
consider that this pale and lonely woman 
whose affection he had tested could dis- 
appoint him now. 

But Anne drew away from him, and 
while his hand still held hers a wave of 
relief from the deeps of her soul went 
over her. She seemed suddenly set 
free from chains. David’s manner, his 
gentle, tender words, had left her cold. 
He was clear-eyed, sensible, happy, but 
temperate and master of himself. She 
felt no desire to respond to his touch or 
glance. Instead there leaped into her 
mind a regret that, without quite real- 
izing why, she must deny him. 

“ Anne,” he said again, his face anx- 
ious now, “ Anne, can you — can you 
love me ? Will you marry me ? ” 

She stood up and turned her head 


278 A Circle in the Sand 


away, still feeling strange to herself. 
When she spoke she obeyed a new 
knowledge, imperative, yet mystifying. 

“ David,” she said slowly, almost 
wonderingly, “ I don’t love you that 
way.” 

He remained silent until she forced 
herself to look fully at him. 

“Ah,” he said, as if it were the first 
breath he had taken since she had 
replied, “ is it so I had hoped — but 
no matter now.” 

Anne gazed shrinkingly at his seri- 
ous, composed face and held out her 
hands. He took them and looked ten- 
derly at her. 

“ We’ll forget this, Anne,” he said. 

Her eyes looked frankly and sorrow- 
fully into his. 

“ I go away to-morrow.” Her fin- 
gers held his closely. “ Say good-by, 
and say it as if you forgave me.” 

“ For what } My dear Anne, you 
need no forgiveness from me.” 

“ I’ve given you some pain, David. 
I’ve disappointed you. I’m sorry.” 


A Circle in the Sand 279 

“You couldn’t help it,” he said. 
“You don’t love me. How are you to 
blame for that ? ” 

Her mind grasped at the words 
eagerly. It was true. She could not 
help it. She was not to blame. 

“ Good-night, Anne. I hope your 
holiday will do you good, and I know 
it will,” David said, quite in his usual 
tone. “ Don’t fail to let me know when 
you return.” 

She let him go with another word, 
and went back to the fire. For a long 
time she crouched over the coals, her 
face sheltered by her hands. Nora’s 
entreaties about preparations for bed 
were unheeded. 

“ I want to be alone,” she said, push- 
ing the girl away. “ Come back by 
and by.” 

She sat in the empty room, watching 
the fire sink lower. She was groping 
in the dark for an understanding of her 
own heart and the reasons which had 
made her refuse to be David Temple’s 
wife. 


28o a Circle in the Sand 


She had loved him the night he had 
sat in this same room and told her of 
Olga. She had continued to love him 
miserably, with passion, and had strug- 
gled to forget him through conflicts of 
regret. In the days when peace had 
come to her he had still seemed the 
most important and dearest in the 
world. She had many times thought 
of him so during the year spent in the 
same house with him. 

Why, then, when he had spoken the 
words she had believed would hold the 
richest harmony in her life had they 
meant none of these dear things Why 
had they not been acceptable ? 

Light came slowly, and she under- 
stood. 

She had outlived her love for David 
Temple without having become aware 
of the change in herself. She had not 
even pitied him acutely, as women do 
pity what they must hurt. 

Was he hurt very much.? He had 
been very sure of her. With fine, con- 
vincing intuition she had felt the confi- 


A Circle in the Sand 


281 


dence underlying his caressing words, 
had divined it in his calm eyes. He 
missed her, that was true enough; 
needed her, for the simplest and most 
sensible reasons. He was fond of 
her. She had his admiration, confi- 
dence, respect. From habit she had 
become necessary to him. His silent 
house required a mistress, his life a 
companion. But the love which comes 
to curse or bless a life, and which is 
all of life, was not there. Even the ex- 
altation of the senses, miscalled love, 
which he had felt for Olga, was absent. 
There was no illusion, no pain, no 
romance, in David’s affection for her. 
It was quiet, well-balanced, whole- 
some. She knew she was the passion- 
less choice of his calm, wise moments. 
The thoughts came and went, and left 
her like a stone. 

Nora tiptoed in, a muddy letter in her 
hand. 

“ The fool of a postman, to save 
cooling his feet, put this under the mat, 
instead of ringing the bell. It’s a sorry- 


282 


A Circle in the Sand 


looking letter it is now,” and Nora 
dried it on her apron before putting it 
in Anne’s outstretched hand. 

It was from Donald. Her eyes 
brightened as she took it quickly and 
drew the rustling pages from the enve- 
lope. She read: 

Dearest Anne : It’s very quiet where I sit 
to-night writing to you. The short twilight has 
disappeared into a dark, blue night, the Southern 
Cross is in the sky, and the few other stars are 
bigger and brighter than the many at home. How 
far away you are from me ! Somehow I never felt 
so alone in the wilderness as I do to-night. A 
longing to see you eats at my heart. There is no 
voice in the world as sweet as yours. I love your 
eyes, the way your lips look when you laugh. Oh, 
Anne, Anne, if I could see you now ! 

These fancies are wild, you will think maybe. 
Oh, but I do love you so ! A nigger somewhere in 
the darkness outside is playing a passionate tune 
on a tin flute, and the savage notes go through me, 
racking me with a miserable sort of happiness, 
they are so like the ache I feel to see you, to touch 
you ! 

I’ve worked very faithfully. The men I’m 
thrown with, Armitage and Morgan, are bully 
good fellows and, like me, are hoping and toiling, 
with prosperity under another sky as the reward. 


A Circle in the Sand 283 


I like them both immensely, and I think they like 
me pretty well. 

I wish you could see your two books. You’d 
hardly know them, they are so thumbed. I almost 
know them by heart. There’s a bright future for 
you, Anne, dear. Oh, I hope you’ll have all your 
dreams realized, every one ! But there’s bitter- 
ness in the thought for me. I see more and more 
how much I aspire to in loving you, how mad the 
dream that maybe — But I can’t go on. Noth- 
ing can alter the fact that I do love you, and, 
though you go quite out of my life and marry and 
are happy without one thought of me, I must still 
love you. Nothing can alter that. 

Oh, I wonder will you ever love me. Will I 
ever be able to go to you and ask you that ? Will 
I dare ? What you’ve been to me ! Only to-day 
as I stood watching the negroes among the coffee 
shrubs I thought of the night in the mines when 
we sat with our hands clasped in the blackness 
and I talked to you of my wretched self as I’d 
never spoken to any living being, and the night 
when Joe died and I tried to tell you all that was 
in my heart. Do you remember it as I do ? I 
kissed your hair that night. You didn’t know it. 
Afterward, when you looked at me, your beautiful 
face so white, and whispered, I’ll remember, 
Donald,” I thought my heart would burst with pain 
and joy. How I wish I could have my life to live 
over again and be at this moment the man God 
had meant me to be, not full of bitter memories, 


284 A Circle in the Sand 


still half afraid after fighting the habits of years ! 
If away back in the past when I was a little chap I 
could have known that one day Fd meet you, love 
you, need you so, how little all that was miserable 
would have seemed — only a time of darkness to 
be lived through somehow with happiness awaiting 
me at the end ! 

These are thoughts which haunt me all the time, 
though IVe little enough time to think. There’s 
so much to do I’ve grown very practical. But it’s 
so quiet here to-night, and you are so very far 
away, and I do crave with physical pain for one 
sight of you, and the nigger’s melody has fired 
my blood, and a queer bird outside my window 
utters now and then a soft good-night note as sad 
as death. 

Oh, to have you beside me in this little room 
just for a moment, to bless it for all the days to 
come with the magic of your smile ! I love you 
dearly, Anne ; need you more. 

I suppose you are very much at home again in 
your old rooms. I can fancy the year you spent 
in Waverly place was deadly dull, although you 
wouldn’t say so. You say David has bought the 
old mansion from the doctor and regularly settled 
down there. I wonder why he does this unless he 
intends to remain a hermit or marry again. 

Do you know I feel sorry for David ! Yet I 
don’t think it would please him to think any one 
felt pity for him. I used to think in the dark 
days before you came to me it would be the 


A Circle in the Sand 285 


sweetest moment in my life to see him in some 
position where I could pity him. He used to 
antagonize and attract me in the one hour. But 
that’s past and done with. There’s not a tinge of 
envy in my feeling for him now. Since his wife’s 
death he’s written to me very seldom. Do you 
think he loved her very much? Does he make 
you his confidante now as he used to do ? You 
and he were great chums once. I hated him 
then. And once — shall I tell you? — I thought 
that maybe he might love you and win you. If 
he had, I think I’d have gone mad with grief. 
David’s had everything all his life, and had it 
before my longing eyes. But if you’d loved him, 
Anne, I would have suffered pangs too intolerable 
to think of without agony. I can lose you to 
another man and bear my disappointment as well 
as I can. But to David Temple — I can’t bear to 
think of it. It would seem too wretchedly con- 
sistent with all that’s gone before. But you’re not 
going to marry him, so I’ll stop tormenting my- 
self this way. 

How long will it be before I see you ? I have 
succeeded moderately, have paid David his loan 
and made some money besides. One year more 
of this and I’ll be able to go home. Home ! 
One year! And then? Well, you know all I 
dream of. You are everything to me. You seem 
near to me some days. I wonder if your thoughts 
stray to me now and then and I feel them ? Oh, 
do think of me, and as tenderly as you can I Do 


286 


A Circle in the Sand 


you understand how I love you? Do you know 
what you are to me ? I cannot write more. 
Good-night. 

Donald. 

The letter slipped from Anne’s fingers 
and lay a small, white patch against the 
whiter hem of her gown. She thrust 
her hands out invitingly. Her eyes had 
the look of a child’s in the dark waiting 
for the coming of the light. The breath 
came and went unevenly through her 
parted lips. A happy smile broke over 
her face. 

She picked the letter up and pressed 
it to her lips several times before she 
spoke to it, as if to one who listened: 

“ I know — I know all now ! My 
dear, dear, dear ! ” 


Chapter XXIV 


MAN on horseback appeared at the 



1 \. head of the road leading from one 
of the cup-shaped hills to the Fazenda 
Ricardo, in the province of Rio Janeiro. 
He wore a short white coat and nan- 
keen trousers. A blue scarf, loosely 
knotted, showed a few inches of darkly 
tanned throat. A wide-leafed straw 
hat, evidently of Brazilian manufact- 
ure, was pulled over his eyes. Even 
in shadow the eyes were unmistakably 
Donald Sefain’s. 

He pulled in his horse and remained 
lost in a study of the scene, while the 
sunlight of a Brazilian January bathed 
him in an intense flood. 

On every hand as far as the eye could 
see the land was prostrate under the 
stare of a pitiless sky. There was no 
shadow near him save that of his horse 


288 


A Circle in the Sand 


and his own broad-hatted figure. Half 
way down the hill one bushy-headed 
palm and the prongs of some cacti lay 
patterned sharply on the bare and daz- 
zling earth. Below, in the middle dis- 
tance, he saw the fazenda, the ugly fac- 
tory, the unsheltered square and cluster 
of outbuildings. Behind him lay the 
waving line of hills on which the coffee 
shrubs flourished, and from which the 
soft, monotonous chant and quavering 
of the negroes came to him. 

This scene made his life — the fazenda, 
the coffee-bearing hills, the unsheltered 
road lying between them. Ugly, arid, 
lonely, were the words that rose in his 
mind as he paused there. The very 
truth and force of the artist in him made 
his heart rise in revolt. Hatred and 
longing were in his steady gaze. 

In a few moments another rider came 
out of the plantation and drew up be- 
side him. He was a big, fair-haired 
man, his light blue eyes a strange anom- 
aly in his senna-brown face. When he 
spoke, his broad, musical accent con- 


A Circle in the Sand 289 


jured a vision of English fields on a 
spring morning instead of the hot, sloth- 
ful land blazing around him. 

“ Waiting for me, Sefain? ” 

“ No, I was thinking. I knew you’d 
follow.” 

The Englishman looked at him, hesi- 
tated, and at length spoke: 

“ Sefain, you’re making a hard fight 
here, aren’t you ? ” He asked the ques- 
tion abruptly as they moved on at a 
crawling pace. 

“Why?” and Donald’s uncommuni- 
cative soul, aroused to interest, looked 
for a moment speculatively from his 
brilliant eyes. 

“ Oh, I can see it! You hold your 
tongue better than any man I’ve ever 
met, and I’ve knocked about a bit in 
this contrary world. But I know you 
are simply sickening for a sight of home 
— and some woman.” 

The words sent a dark flush up Don- 
ald’s cheek, and his silence was cold. 

“ Fact! But don’t suppose I’m trying 
to force your confidence, my boy.” He 


290 


A Circle in the Sand 


laid his hand on Donald’s wrist. “ I 
speak this way because — well, be- 
cause I’m deuced sorry for you ” — 

“You’re wasting your pity, then. 
What the devil do you mean ? One 
would think I’d been playing the part 
of a sentimental fool.” 

“ Hold on, mi amigo. Let not the 
' Inglezes ’ quarrel and set a bad example 
to these brown beggars here ; ” and an 
imperturbable smile distended Armi- 
tage’s full cheeks. “ I haven’t finished. 
I’m sorry, and I’m envious at the same 
time. God! To be not yet thirty and 
in love! To know the world only in 
one pair of eyes and comprehend 
heaven in the touch of five slim fingers ! 
What wouldn’t I give to feel this, tell 
myself fondly I was a fool, and be glad 
I was ! Hug your misery, my boy. Be 
such a fool. Some day, maybe, when 
you’re like me and not a living thing is 
really necessary to you, when you know 
only the sleek and deadly level of prac- 
tical self-content, you’ll remember and 
wish the longings which tear you now 


A Circle in the Sand 


291 


could come again and hurt you. That 
man only is blest whose happiness de- 
pends upon another human being.” 

Donald looked at him in amazement. 
He had never heard words like these 
from Armitage. They touched him, 
too. Over his lean brown face a 
dreaminess stole, and just as they 
crossed the fanlike shadow of the soli- 
tary palm upon the roadway he moved 
Armitage’s hand from his wrist and 
gripped it. 

“ Armitage,” he said, roused for the 
moment out of his self-reserve, “ I 
almost wish, then, you could love a 
woman as miserably, as passionately, 
perhaps as hopelessly, as I do. She is 
the desire of my life and its greatest 
good.” 

‘H knew it. The signs never fail. 
And now I want to talk to you. We 
might as well here as at the fazenda. 
Why don’t you sell out to me or to 
Morgan, take what you’ve made, and 
go home?” 

“ Home ? ” echoed Donald, unable to 


292 


A Circle in the Sand 


repress the note of hope and yearning 
in his voice at sound of that sweet 
word. “ Why ? ” 

‘‘ Do you think this ” — with a con- 
temptuous gesture toward the group of 
low, tiled-roof buildings and the bare 
land — “ pays for the pain in the 
heart? As for the money you make, 
it’s not much for the struggle. The 
days are gone when big fortunes were 
made in coffee-planting. It doesn’t mat- 
ter much whether my . bones eventu- 
ally lie under this sun or Korea’s, and 
it’s the same with Morgan. But you 
— well, there’s a woman you love far 
away from this wilderness. For God’s 
sake, seize your happiness, sell out, and 
go to her ! ” 

“ I won’t,” said Donald quietly. 
“ I’ve a task to accomplish.” 

“ Other than the averaging of a profit 
of eight shillings and tuppence on a 
bag of sixty kilograms ? ” 

“ Other than that. I am content 
with these medium profits. I came 
here not only to conquer or, at least. 


A Circle in the Sand 


293 


disarm fortune, but to conquer myself. 
I’ll stay the time I intended.” 

They rode on silently. An old ne- 
gress with a child on her hip stopped 
in the middle of the road, her palm 
outstretched, and, following a curious 
custom, cried in Spanish: 

“ Bless me ! ” 

“God bless you!” said Armitage, 
and she went on. 

A cart drawn by goats and filled with 
firewood passed them. Black vultures 
as motionless as if fashioned in basalt 
looked down from the stump of a dead 
tree as they neared the fazenda. 

On nearer view the details of the 
place were even more unlovely than 
the misty whole seen from the hilltop. 
Cattle grazed loose under the charge 
of an aged negro squatting in the sun 
and slumbering with his almost flesh- 
less face against his knee. The gates 
through which the two men passed 
were, like everything else about the 
place, constructed to do what was 
required of them lazily, carelessly; and 


A Circle in the Sand 


294 

having been swung back as if under 
protest when the horses were pushed 
against them, they returned only half 
way, with a screech from rusty hinges, 
and stuck fast in a tuft of weeds. A 
large family of cats, too attenuated to 
frolic, strolled languidly around the 
paved square or sat winking their half- 
blind eyes in the glare. From some 
of the white laborers’ cottages came 
the smell of pork and frying bread. 
Over it all the sun flamed hard. 

Donald and Armitage alighted at the 
factory, and from this came the low 
crooning, the murmur of mixed song, 
heard wherever the negro works. 

“ I’m dead for a siesta. My clothes 
seem weighted with stones,” said Ar- 
mitage, yawning. ‘‘ I was up before the 
sun this morning, long before it, — so 
were you,” he broke off suddenly, 
‘‘and by George! you look dead beat. 
You’d better go a little easier. Do as I 
do, Sefain. After your coffee, lie down.” 

“ I’m going to,” said Donald list- 
lessly. 


A Circle in the Sand 295 

“Yes, but sleep. Don’t lie and 
think. Why don’t you go now and 
let Tomas fetch your coffee at once? 
It’s almost three.” 

“ After I see Seraphine and find out 
what that rascal of an agent at the 
railway had to say in answer to my 
complaint. Must we keep trusting his 
honesty in weighing the sacks ? I’d as 
soon trust the devil.” 

“ Ah, what can we do ? That’s the 
leakage through which our profits drip. 
But because time and exertion are as 
valuable as money in this enervating 
plague-spot, we must trust as we go, 
and be cheated from the moment we 
leave the sacks at the station to the mo- 
ment they are shipped in Rio. Don’t 
let me think of it. The helplessness 
of it drives me frantic. It’s too hot to 
object even to being fleeced,” and Armi- 
tage swung across to Morgan’s house, 
where he knew pork and plantains were 
waiting for him. 

Half an hour later, Donald, with 
hands in trousers’ pockets and hat tilted 


296 A Circle in the Sand 


lazily over eyes that seemed asleep, 
went down the stone square to the end 
farthest from the factory and paused 
before a small house exactly like the 
others save that it stood apart, a palm 
within a few feet throwing a top-heavy 
shadow across its white fa9ade. 

Home — that silent, shaded little 
house of four small rooms, where no 
familiar face ever welcomed him and 
no voice but his own or his servant’s 
vibrated on the sleepy air. As Donald 
looked upon it now, the quiet place 
seemed to feel the dissatisfaction aris- 
ing from his tormented heart, and to 
meet it with almost servile protest. 

He had done what he could to 
make the house habitable. It was even 
a pretty house when compared with the 
bare hideousness with which Armitage 
and Morgan were content. The laced 
bamboo flaps on the windows made the 
place swim in gloom as restful after the 
sunlight as the feeling of a cool hand 
on the brow. There was matting on 
the floor, a hammock swung in a corner. 


A Circle in the Sand 297 

some sketches of his own upon the 
walls, some books on the mantel shelf. 
Chief among the books were Anne’s, 
and just above them hung a small, 
unframed pastel he had made, showing 
her face with the expression he loved 
best, the eyes glancing sideways, half- 
questioning, tender. 

He dropped the big manila hat to 
the floor, sank into a cane chair, and 
stretched his body out in a way expres- 
sive of unspeakable weariness. Now 
that his forehead was bared, the sun’s 
strength was seen in the pallor of the 
skin just below the hair, making a di- 
vision as sharp as a sabre cut. 

Armitage was right: he was used up 
and needed a rest. His hand sought 
some cigars upon a small table and 
then slipped back. It would be better 
not to smoke until Tomas had brought 
his coffee — Tomas of the many lies, 
the sickly-sweet smile, and the coral- 
tipped pendants in objectionable ears. 

All sorts of thoughts and half 
thoughts floated through his mind — 


298 A Circle in the Sand 


the heaviness of the day, the knavery 
of the Portuguese agent on the Dom 
Pedro 11 . Railroad, the wish to make 
money faster, the surprising words 
Armitage had spoken on the road, and 
always, no matter what his surface 
thought, the fierce and living conscious- 
ness of Anne underlying all, the un- 
governable longings he had let speak 
in that last letter to her, the craving for 
her answer, the constantly recurring 
waves of homesickness checked by 
returning determinations to be strong 
to the end. 

One more year of work, and he would 
have tested himself enough, and made 
enough money to go back to New York. 
He saw the town plainly, and with 
an unappeasable longing. There were 
the “ Citizen ” offices, the panorama of 
sparkling bay and clotted smoke against 
a copper sky seen from its western win- 
dows; the brisk crowds on Broadway, 
the snow, furs, and violets; but most 
of all Anne’s rooms, the firelight clasp- 
ing her as in a confidence, and perhaps 


A Circle in the Sand 299 

cold, sweet rain washing a winter plant 
upon the window-sill — cold, cold, sweet 
rain, not the sticky mist and windless 
showers falling at intervals in this hot 
season. He longed to feel its riot and 
chill against his face and hear the ring 
of the stone pavements under his tread, 
or to hurry through miles of frosty sun- 
light to Anne’s side — 

Tomas entered with the coffee and a 
dish of peppered chicken, but midway 
across the room he paused and let his 
melancholy eyes rest upon his master. 
He was asleep, his head fallen back, 
and exhaustion marking the features. 
Sleep was better for him than peppered 
chicken, Tomas reasoned, and remained 
considerately quiet, his gaze as melan- 
choly, but more watchful, as he lifted a 
piece of the meat to his lips with his 
fingers and rhythmically licked their 
brown tips. It was indeed well for his 
master to slumber on, and if he took 
another piece there would still be 
enough. 

Before he could materialize the 


300 


A Circle in the Sand 


thought voices outside surprised him. 
He hurried to the door and met the 
Spanish housekeeper of Senor Morgan 
about to enter. At a little distance 
behind her he saw a small group of 
people, two strange women, evidently 
‘‘ Inglez,” and with them Senor Armi- 
tage. At the entrance to the court 
stood an ox-cart in which the visitors 
must have come from the station. The 
heavy beasts were rubbing their noses 
together, moving the iron bells upon 
their collars, and sending a lonely clang 
through the sunlight. 

“ Mother of God, the senor will be 
surprised !” Morgan’s housekeeper was 
saying in shrill tones, swaying from 
hip to hip in her excitement. He will 
shout and throw his hat into the air for 
joy when he knows. Ah, you will all 
see ! Ay, it is wonderful ! Out of the 
way, stupid pig!” to Tomas. “I am 
to tell the senor that his love has come 
to him over thousands of miles.” 

“The senor sleeps as if the sun had 
touched him,” interposed Tomas, with a 


A Circle in the Sand 


301 


glance of murder, for he hated the 
housekeeper, who annoyed his reveries 
by talking too much, and knew so well 
how to take precise aim when she threw 
broken crockery at him. I would not 
rouse him for the chicken even ’’ — 
Because, beast, you wanted to eat 
it yourself! This is more important 
than food. Let me in!” 

Armitage pulled her back and mo- 
tioned Tomas aside. 

Go away, both of you ! ” he said, in 
a whisper of command. 

He turned to one of the strangers. 
She was young, dark-eyed, a little too 
white and slender for his idea of beauty, 
and with marks of travel weariness on 
her face. 

“ Let your maid wait here. You will 
find Sefain in this house. They say he 
is sleeping.” 

Anne’s lids sank for a moment over 
her eyes as if a throe of insupportable 
feeling coursed through her, which 
might have been apprehension or love, 
and she entered the dim room. She 


302 


A Circle in the Sand 


stood with loosely clasped hands and 
looked down at Donald. Often during 
the travail of the long journey so im- 
pulsively undertaken, she had won- 
dered what emotions would come to 
her in this moment when she faced the 
struggler who needed and loved her, 
the man she loved. 

She looked at him in silence and her 
lips quivered. She was stirred with a 
passionate joy, — but not this alone, — 
an exquisite, penetrating pity, the desire 
to shield came from the depths of her 
nature, where the motherhood lurks 
that is part of every woman. 

Donald’s lids showing blue against 
the browned and sunken face, the clam- 
miness upon the strip of pale forehead, 
the parched lips parted, the unguarded 
heart crying out its distress in the fixed 
expression of sorrow and appeal, were 
like so many chords around her heart 
drawing her toward him. She had done 
right to come to him. 

She crossed the room to his side. 
But though she leaned above him, he 


A Circle in the Sand 303 

still slept, not knowing heaven was 
near. She sank on her knees and laid 
her cheek upon his drooping hand, as 
she called him clearly twice. 

Donald started forward, dazed. The 
reality came in Anne’s kiss as she clung 
to him. 


THE END. 



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